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What sources do adolescents turn to for information about their health concerns?

  • Azam Baheiraei , Elham Khoori EMAIL logo , Abbas Rahimi Foroushani , Fazlollah Ahmadi and Michele L. Ybarra
Published/Copyright: April 26, 2013

Abstract

Background: Adolescents are developmentally normatively interested in information about sexuality and other health-related issues. In the absence of available health programming, identifying the sources of information that youth are currently accessing will help adolescent health researchers understand where youth ‘are,’ thereby informing where and how future interventions can be targeted. This is particularly important in resource-limited settings, such as Iran, where funding for public health programming is scant. This study aimed to examine primary and preferred sources of adolescents’ health information queries and identify health topics in which they are most interested.

Methods: In 2011, a random sample of 915 adolescents, aged 14–18 years, completed anonymous, self-administered questionnaires.

Results: Mothers (51.11%) and same-sex friends (40.11%) were both the primary as well as the preferred source of health information for adolescents. More than one in three adolescents identified media information sources, including books (39.6%) and the Internet (37.9%), as their primary and preferred sources. The most common topic adolescents sought information about was sexuality issues. Younger adolescents preferred receiving information from parents, whereas older adolescents preferred friends as sources for information [X2=9.3, p=0.009]. No age differences were noted in using media sources (p>0.05).

Conclusions: These findings indicate future interventions should integrate some if not all of these sources [both people (mothers, same-sex friends) and media (books, the Internet)] to deliver evidenced-based health information.


Corresponding author: Elham Khoori, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, School of Nursing and Midwifery, Tehran, Iran, Phone: +98 21 66933600, Fax: +98 21 66941668, E-mail:

This work was supported and funded by the Tehran University of Medical Sciences [grant number 89-04-28-11912]. We would like to thank Ms. Tonya Prescott for her thoughtful reading of a draft of the manuscript.

Conflict of interest statement: None.

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Received: 2012-10-30
Accepted: 2013-1-29
Published Online: 2013-04-26
Published in Print: 2014-02-01

©2014 by Walter de Gruyter Berlin Boston

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