Steel Amie, Foley Hope, Adams Jon
School of Public Health, Faculty of Health, University of Technology Sydney, Level 8, Building 10, 235-253 Jones St, Ultimo, NSW, Australia.
BMC Public Health. 2025 Jan 8;25(1):95. doi: 10.1186/s12889-024-20895-x.
While some general patterns and trends of health information seeking and literacy in the Australian population are known, there is a need to understand these behaviours and skills specific to the focus areas outlined in the National Preventive Health Strategy (NPHS).
In response, this study employed a cross-sectional online survey of adults in the Australian general population (n = 1509) to investigate their knowledge and health information seeking behaviour regarding the NPHS' seven focus areas. It also explored primary care practitioners as a preventive health information source. The survey consisted of 135 core items and 15 adaptive items including the Health Literacy Questionnaire (HLQ). The degree to which accessing information about a preventive health focus area from one of the three categories of health professional predicted the accuracy of the participant's knowledge about that focus area was determined using logistic regression.
A total of 1,535 complete responses were recorded, 26 of which were removed due to data integrity concerns, resulting in a final sample of n = 1,509. Participants were typically above mid-range for each of the HLQ scales. The sample was broadly representative of the Australian general population. Preventive health knowledge items about cancer screening and prevention were scored accurately by the most participants (85.2%), while the highest number of completely incorrect responses were immunisation (5.3%), alcohol intake (5%) and tobacco and nicotine addiction (4.9%). Participants who provided correct responses to both items about tobacco and nicotine addiction had decreased odds by of having accessed information about tobacco from a medical doctor (aOR 0.30), while those who answered items about immunisation correctly had lower odds of accessing information about immunisation from complementary medicine providers (aOR 0.30). Reporting completely correct responses to alcohol intake items was associated with lower odds of accessing information about alcohol from either medical doctors (aOR 0.46) or complementary medicine providers (aOR 0.17).
This research highlights the need for future research to investigate and understand some key issues challenging efforts to optimise effective preventive health initiatives with a view to informing better community health and wellbeing outcomes.
虽然澳大利亚人群健康信息寻求和素养的一些总体模式和趋势已为人所知，但仍有必要了解《国家预防健康战略》（NPHS）概述的重点领域所特有的这些行为和技能。
作为回应，本研究对澳大利亚普通人群中的成年人（n = 1509）进行了一项横断面在线调查，以调查他们关于NPHS七个重点领域的知识和健康信息寻求行为。它还探讨了初级保健从业者作为预防健康信息来源的情况。该调查由135个核心项目和15个自适应项目组成，包括健康素养问卷（HLQ）。使用逻辑回归确定从三类健康专业人员之一获取关于预防健康重点领域的信息在多大程度上预测了参与者对该重点领域知识的准确性。
共记录了1535份完整回复，其中26份因数据完整性问题被剔除，最终样本量为n = 1509。参与者在HLQ各量表上的得分通常高于中等水平。该样本大致代表了澳大利亚普通人群。大多数参与者（85.2%）对癌症筛查和预防的预防健康知识项目回答正确，而完全错误回答数量最多的是免疫接种（5.3%）、酒精摄入（5%）以及烟草和尼古丁成瘾（4.9%）。对烟草和尼古丁成瘾两项均回答正确的参与者从医生处获取烟草信息的几率降低（调整后比值比为0.30），而正确回答免疫接种项目的参与者从补充医学提供者处获取免疫接种信息的几率较低（调整后比值比为0.30）。对酒精摄入项目回答完全正确与从医生（调整后比值比为0.46）或补充医学提供者（调整后比值比为0.17）处获取酒精信息的几率较低相关。
本研究强调未来研究需要调查和理解一些关键问题，这些问题对优化有效的预防健康举措构成挑战，以期为改善社区健康和福祉成果提供信息。
