Sasha A. Fleary, Evans Family Assistant Professor, Tufts University, Eliot-Pearson Department of Child Study and Human Development, Medford MA;, Email:
Patrece Joseph, Graduate Research Assistant, Tufts University, Eliot-Pearson Department of Child Study and Human Development, Medford MA.
Am J Health Behav. 2020 Jul 1;44(4):392-408. doi: 10.5993/AJHB.44.4.3.
Adolescents assume increased responsibility for their health, particularly regarding health decision-making for lifestyle behaviors. Prior research suggests a relationship between health literacy (HL) and health behaviors in adolescents. Yet, the specific role of HL in adolescents' health decision-making is unclear. This study qualitatively explored adolescents' use of HL in their health decision-making. Six focus groups with adolescents (N = 37, M = 16.49, 86% girls) were conducted. Adolescents' responses to questions about their HL use were coded using thematic analysis. Adolescents identified passive and active HL engagement and several individual (eg, future orientation, risk perception) and environmental (eg, access to resources/information, media) factors that influenced their use of HL in health decision-making. Feedback from others, subjective health, and ability to navigate multiple sources of information also determined adolescents' confidence in their HL skills. Our results support expanding the types of HL studied/measured in adolescents and provide insight on how HL can be leveraged to improve adolescents' health decision-making. Though there was no guiding theory for this study, results support using the Information-Motivation-Behavior Skills model to assess the HL/health decision-making relationship in adolescence.
青少年开始对自己的健康承担更多的责任，特别是在涉及生活方式行为的健康决策方面。先前的研究表明，健康素养（HL）与青少年的健康行为之间存在关系。然而，HL 在青少年健康决策中的具体作用尚不清楚。本研究从定性角度探讨了青少年在健康决策中使用 HL 的情况。 共进行了 6 次青少年焦点小组（N = 37，M = 16.49，86%为女孩）。使用主题分析对青少年关于 HL 使用情况的回答进行编码。 青少年确定了被动和主动 HL 参与度，以及几个个人（例如，未来导向、风险感知）和环境（例如，获取资源/信息、媒体）因素，这些因素影响了他们在健康决策中使用 HL 的情况。来自他人的反馈、主观健康状况以及驾驭多种信息来源的能力也决定了青少年对自己 HL 技能的信心。 我们的研究结果支持在青少年中扩展 HL 研究/测量的类型，并深入了解如何利用 HL 来改善青少年的健康决策。虽然本研究没有指导理论，但研究结果支持使用信息-动机-行为技能模型来评估青少年时期的 HL/健康决策关系。
