Health Information Seeking and Information Encountering of Female Undergraduates: a Pilot Study at University of Moratuwa

Abstract

Health literacy can be explained as one’s ability to obtain, process and understand health information and services to enable sound health decision making. A healthy population is an asset to any country and directly related to the economic growth and development. Health literacy is fundamentally important to maintain a population’s health. National survey on emerging issues among adolescents recognized health literacy as a life skill since adolescence has recently gained recognition as a critical phase of life. On the other hand health literacy as a life skill will have a greater impact on adult health. Undergraduates just passed adolescence will be future leaders of the society and female undergraduates will be future mothers in the community. This study was conducted as a part of a research on prevention and control of breast cancer and explored the health information seeking and information encountering of female undergraduates of University of Moratuwa. Adopting the survey method, a semi- structured questionnaire was developed as the research instrument and consisted of 4 parts namely socio demographic data, knowledge on breast cancer, knowledge on screening of breast cancer and information seeking behaviour, Questionnaire was randomly distributed among 245 female undergraduates of three faculties of University of Moratuwa who were willing to participate for the survey. Of 245 respondents, 95 undergraduates belonged to Faculty of Architecture ; 71 undergraduates belonged to Faculty of Engineering and 79 undergraduates belonged to Faculty of Information Technology. Though health literacy is not a novel concept majority of the respondents were not aware about it. Few participants were able to explain the concept of health literacy. Majority of the respondents understand health education is vital in the university as undergraduates and prefer the availability of health information in the university library. Most of the female undergraduates prefer to maintain a personal collocation on health related aspects. However, only 19 students have used university library to find out health-related information. Participants also believed that University library does not have items on health aspects as well as available collection is out-dated. of 245 respondents, 191 undergraduates believed that the Internet provides latest information on health aspects. Social media such as Facebook has been rated as best option to educate about health literacy. However, 98 students frequently get information from Medical Officers about health related aspects. On the other hand, health information seeking through television programmes is also common. Most of the participants also encounter health related information through television programmes, magazines and newspapers dedicated for women. Majority of the female undergraduates participated did not concern about their health at the younger age since there are many burning issues prevailing currently for undergraduates. In conclusion, female undergraduates accepted the fact that health education is vital in the university setup as undergraduates are future leaders. Regular awareness programmes to educate undergraduate about health aspects is recommended along with developing library collection related to health literacy.