MEASURING THE HEALTH PERCEPTION AND HEALTH LITERACY LEVEL OF CHILDREN AGED 14-15: THE SAMPLE OF SAKARYA PROVINCE

During middle adolescence, identity formation intensifies, social relationships gain importance, and engagement in risky behaviors tends to increase. Health literacy and health perception developed during this critical developmental stage play a key role in shaping individuals’ long-term health attitudes and behaviors. This study aimed to examine the levels of health literacy and health perception among middle adolescents. The research was conducted with 244 students from Sakarya province who participated with parental consent. Data were collected using two scales and a questionnaire consisting of the socio-demographic characteristics of the participants. The first scale is the Health Perception Scale developed by Diamond et al. (2007) and adapted into Turkish by Kadıoğlu and Yıldız (2012). The other is the Health Literacy Scale for School-Age Children, developed by Paakkari et al. (2016) and validated and reliably analyzed by Ozturk Haney (2018). Descriptive statistics, correlation analysis, regression analysis, Mann–Whitney U test, and Kruskal–Wallis H test were used to analyze the data. The findings revealed that participants had moderate levels of health literacy and health perception. A significant positive relationship was observed between the two variables. Among the sub-dimensions of health literacy, both practical information and theoretical knowledge were found to be significant positive predictors of health perception. Based on these results, it is recommended that educational programs for adolescents include content designed to enhance both health literacy and health perception. Furthermore, academic research should be encouraged to expand knowledge and raise awareness in this important area.