Assessing Health Literacy and Its Relationship with Using Cell Phone among Adolescents

Aim: One of the most significant outcomes of health education is health literacy (HL) so that it must be widely applied for achieving health promotion. The aim of this study was assessing HL and its relationship with using cell phone in adolescents in Mashhad City. Methods: In this analytic-descriptive research, 445 high school adolescents selected with cluster sampling were assessed. For assessing HL, the Newest Vital Sign (NVS) was used. Cell phone use assessment tool was used for assessing the use of using cell phone. Data were analyzed by SPSS version 16. Findings: Based on the obtained results, 82.1% and 86.2% of the female and male adolescents had not adequate HL, respectively. There was a negative correlation between the adolescents’ HL and using cell phone (p<0.0001). Conclusion: Most of the adolescents had limited HL, and the adolescents with higher rate of using cell phone had worse HL score. In fact, adequate HL has a significant role for promoting health in the society. Therefore, policy makers are suggested to design useful educational programs for adolescents, especially in non-medical settings such as schools, was most of the day, adolescents spend their time over there.