ABSTRACT
Background: Health literacy improves a population’s self-care ability and assists in reducing health inequalities. Health literacy (HL) is an important determinant of public health as well as individual healthcare. Adolescent health literacy is an important and modifiable health determinant; it is important to promote health literacy at a young age as this is an important intervention strategy for reducing disease burdens and disparities. Some socio-demographic factors have been found in other studies to be related to health literacy. The extent to which people manage their health has also been linked. HL has been an important factor for determining health promotion and the use of health information.
Aim: The aim of this study is to determine the influence of socio-demographic factors on health literacy among secondary school students.
Methods: A sample size of 293 students were recruited for this study. Students who were conveniently selected from seven randomly selected secondary schools. The validated Health Literacy Questionnaire (HLQ) 44 was used to assess health literacy across 9 domains. Sociodemographic data for age, gender, class levels, and school types were collected. Weight and height were measured using scale and measuring tape as appropriate. Body mass index were calculated from weight and height measurements. Descriptive statistics, independent t-test and ANOVA were used for data analysis and alpha level was set at 0.05.
Results: The respondents showed a higher knowledge of health literacy in only one health literacy domain (Domain 9: understand health information well enough to know what to do) with an average score of 3.83 (± 0.86). This study also showed no significant differences between age groups, gender, class levels and across all domains of health literacy (p>0.05). The study showed significant difference (p =0.002) across school types and health literacy in the 5th domain (appraisal of health information). Public school students have a higher health literacy than the private school students. There was also significant difference (p = 0.029) between BMI groups and health literacy in the 6th domain (ability to engage health care providers). BMI may be a predictor for health literacy with ability to engage health care providers.
Conclusions: There is an overall high level of health literacy among secondary school students in Benin City. School types and BMI showed significant differences in domain 5 (appraisal of health information) and 6 (ability to engage health care providers) respectively. This study contributes to our understanding of factors that could influence health literacy and this information could be used by health care providers and other stakeholders to promote levels of health literacy.
Keywords: Health Literacy, students, Socio-demographic, Influence, Adolescent.
