Perceptions of adolescent health literacy in the Palestinian social context: a qualitative study

抄録

Objective: Palestinians are exposed to chronic violence, which has a negative impact on health status. Health literacy is increasingly employed to increase people’s control over their health. This qualitative research explored adolescents’, parents’ and teachers’ views regarding important health-related issues to Palestinian adolescents, as a preliminary step to develop a health literacy tool sensitive to the Palestinian social context.

Methods: We conducted 22 semi-structured interviews with adolescents, teachers and parents in the Ramallah Governorate between January and February 2017. Sex and locality variations were taken into consideration. Conventional content analysis was used to analyze interviews and retrieve the main categories of health-related issues that are important to adolescents.

Results: Palestinian adolescents need to access information covering a wider range of health issues including reproductive health, lifestyle, personal hygiene, environmental health and mental health. Some of the adolescents linked violence to health status. Many of the participants identified adolescents’ willingness to search for health information as a challenge and interviews revealed various health information sources for adolescents. The main sources of health information were mothers, friends, school and the internet among others.

Conclusion: Needs are high for Palestinian adolescents to improve their health literacy. Empowering them with health literacy competencies may be vital for alleviating the negative health impact of chronic exposure to violence. A context sensitive health literacy instrument can help conduct new research for understanding predictors of Palestinian adolescent health literacy.