Surveys assessing STI related health information needs of adolescent population

Individuals are widely using different sources to acquire health information. To better understand the adolescents' needs of having tailored health information, it becomes important to assess the existing sources that they utilize to obtain that information. Our study objective was to identify sources of STI related health information studied among adolescents. A search was conducted using Google during November 2011 to January 2012 to identify different STI related health information sources. A combination of 3 key words including adolescent sexual health survey, sex health information survey, and sexual health education assessment were used. The first 20 weblinks from each search were combined resulting in a total of 60 primary weblinks. Secondary search was conducted to identify additional relevant articles. A total of 10 articles were found relevant, of which 52% were non US-based. 87% of the primary articles were excluded as they did not gather the source of STI related health information in their surveys. Most common sources assessed were TV, doctor, books, magazines, friends, and parents. Internet was assessed only in 3 of the final 10 articles. Future research should be done to assess role of internet as a possible source of disseminating STI related health information among adolescents.