Marcela Ariadne Braga Gomes Tomé, Marcela Matias Sena, Mariana Cavalcante Martins, Paulo César de Almeida, Ana Larissa Gomes Machado, Fabiane do Amaral Gubert, Eveline Pinheiro Beserra, Neiva Francenely Cunha Vieira
adolescents demonstrated high levels of health literacy, but they initiated hormonal contraceptive use with low functional literacy, which may compromise their understanding of information about the method. Factors such as age, family composition, and contraceptive use duration influenced the level of health literacy.
OBJECTIVES: to identify factors associated with the level of health literacy of adolescents using hormonal contraceptives.
METHODS: a descriptive, cross-sectional, and quantitative study was conducted with 147 female adolescents from five public schools. A sociodemographic questionnaire and the Health Literacy Scale-14 were administered.
RESULTS: most adolescents (80.3%) had high health literacy, but with low scores in functional literacy and high scores in communicative and critical literacy. The variables associated with health literacy were age (p=0.005), head of household (p=0.012), who they live with (p=0.009), and contraceptive use duration (p=0.007).
CONCLUSIONS: adolescents demonstrated high levels of health literacy, but they initiated hormonal contraceptive use with low functional literacy, which may compromise their understanding of information about the method. Factors such as age, family composition, and contraceptive use duration influenced the level of health literacy.