Tatjana Gazibara, Jelena Cakic, Milica Cakic, Anita Grgurevic, Tatjana Pekmezovic
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引用次数: 0
Abstract
Background: Many adolescents do not have access to sexual and reproductive health education due to the lack of structural support specific to cultural formatting and overall negative attitude toward this type of education. Therefore, adolescents often use the internet as the main source of health information. The purpose of this study was to investigate specific internet websites associated with online searching for information about sex and sexually transmitted infections (STIs).
Methods: A cross-sectional study was carried out on 702 high school students in Belgrade, the capital city of Serbia. Relevant data were obtained through an anonymous questionnaire. The questionnaire included socio-demographic characteristics, use of the internet and online platforms. Electronic health literacy was tested by the e-Health literacy scale.
Results: All students used the internet. The prevalence of seeking online information about sex was 31.9% and 12.4% about STIs. Being a boy, having lower grades, attending the humanities-languages program, being younger when using the internet for the first time, using forums and social media, but not websites run by physicians, and browsing online information about STIs were associated with seeking online information about sex. Girls, who had lower grades, had higher family income, were older when they first started using the internet, used social media and websites run by physicians and searched for online information about sex were more likely to seek online information about STIs.
Conclusions: Adolescents in this study sought online information about sex more often than STIs. Social media were used to search both topics online, suggesting that participatory media which offer engaging content could be the preferred manner of online learning about sex and STIs. These online resources could be used for information delivery about reproductive health for high school students.
期刊介绍：
The journal aims to: ·publish academic content and commentaries of practical importance; ·provide an international and interdisciplinary forum for the dissemination and exchange of health promotion, health education and public health theory, research findings, practice and reviews; ·publish articles which ensure wide geographical coverage and are of general interest to an international readership; ·provide fair, supportive, efficient and high quality peer review and editorial handling of all submissions.
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