The study of health literacy and its related factors among female students at high schools in Qazvin

Background and Objective: Health literacy has an impact on preventing harm to the community of students, disease prevention, self-care, and life quality. This study aimed to determine the health literacy and its related factors in high school students in Qazvin city. Materials and Methods: This research was a descriptive cross-sectional study. The population of this study was 372 students of girl’s high school of Qazvin in 2019 that were selected by multi-stage sampling. The data collection tool was a demographic and field questionnaire and the standard questionnaire for Health Literacy Measure for Adolescents (HELMA). Data were analyzed using SPSS software version 23 and descriptive statistics and logistic regression. Results: The mean (standard deviation) of the health literacy score was 70.84(12.58) from 100. 5.4 % (n=20) had low health literacy, 31.2 % (n=116) had inadequate health literacy, 46.5 % (n=173) had adequate health literacy and 16.4 % (n=61) had high health literacy. Health literacy had a significant statistically relationship with basic educational variables (P = 0.003) and interest in health topics (P = 0.002) but it had no relationship with other demographic and background variables (P 0.05). Conclusion: Considering the limited health literacy in a wide range of students, adding some items to school curricula such as education related to the level of health literacy can be effective in improving the health literacy of students.