Searching for online health information instead of seeing a physician: a cross-sectional study among high school student
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ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Searching for online health information instead of seeing a physician: a cross-sectional study among high school students in Belgrade, Serbia Tatjana Gazibara1 • Jelena Cakic1 • Milica Cakic1 • Anita Grgurevic1 • Tatjana Pekmezovic1 Received: 7 May 2020 / Revised: 18 August 2020 / Accepted: 25 August 2020 Swiss School of Public Health (SSPH+) 2020
Abstract Objectives Fear of being judged and stigmatized has been reported as barriers for adolescents to timely use healthcare services. The objective of this study was to examine the prevalence and factors associated with online health information seeking instead of seeing a physician among high school students. Methods A cross-sectional questionnaire-based study was carried out in four out of 21 public high schools in Belgrade, from December 2016 to January 2017 (n = 702, 41.9% males, 15–19 years old). The association of socio-demographic characteristics, digital literacy, interest in health topics and the use of online platforms with health information seeking was analysed using multinomial regression models. Results More than half of high school students (56.6%) search for online health information instead of seeking a physician. Being male, having lower-grade point average, attending humanities-languages program, older age at first Internet use, better e-health literacy, use of smartphones, interest in sexually transmitted diseases and mental health, use of websites run by physicians and Youtube was associated with online health information seeking instead of in-person visit to a physician. Conclusions Setting up safe and supportive online platform could help adolescents improve health education. Physicians who see adolescent patients should encourage discussions about sensitive health topics. Keywords Health information e-Health Internet Information seeking behaviour Adolescents
Introduction Over the past 2 decades, the number of households with Internet access in the Republic of Serbia has doubled (34.0% in 2006 to 68.1% in 2017) (Statistical Office of the Republic of Serbia 2017). Of all age groups, adolescents and young adults in Serbia account for the groups with the highest proportion of Internet users (97.3% of females and 98.7% of males) (Statistical Office of the Republic of Serbia 2017). The same holds true for use of smartphones, which has become the preferred choice of Internet access (Statistical Office of the Republic of Serbia 2017). Only 12.3% of persons aged 16–24 years do not have Internet
This article is part of the special issue ‘‘Adolescent health in Central and Eastern Europe’’. & Tatjana Gazibara [email protected] 1
Institute of Epidemiology, Faculty of Medicine, University of Belgrade, Visegradska 26a, 11000 Belgrade, Serbia
access outside of home (Statistical Office of the Republic of Serbia 2017). These data suggest that adolescents and young adults are connected and able to communicate almost everywhere at all times. Many adolescents seek health informat
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