Health literacy and educational necessities perceived by adolescents in an area of Asturias, a cross-sectional study

Background: In view of the unfavourable results of the HLS-EU Project in Spain and given that there are hardly any studies about health literacy (HL) in adolescents, it was proposed as main objective to determine the degree of HL of adolescents after Obligatory Secondary Education (OSE) and the educational necessities which they perceive in Health Education (HE). Methods: Observational descriptive cross-sectional study with students in their first year of Upper Secondary Education for the academic year 2018/2019 from Healthcare Area V (Asturias). It was an equi-probabilistic one-stage cluster sampling, selecting 12 classrooms with 323 students. The HLS-EU-Q16 questionnaire was used to measure the HL and a self-designed one about educational necessities, which was validated by the Regional Ministry of Education and Culture. A descriptive and Bayesian inference analysis was performed in R 3.5.2. Results: 206 individuals were studied. HL proved sufficient in 55.8%, problematic in 40.3% and inadequate in 3.9%. A 98.6% considered training in HE necessary', preferring workshops and one-time talks (58.7%). HL only showed relation with self-perceived health, and not with sex, mothers'/fathers'/guardians' educational level nor having received HE. Conclusions: Almost half of adolescents got problematic or inadequate HL, which relates with health risk behaviours and worse use of health resources, according to the evidence. Having received HE did not associated with better HL, which suggests that currently their educational necessities are not covered.