Predicting Health Literacy through Social Intelligence in Second Grade High School Male Students in Qayen, Iran

Background and Objectives : Good social relationship and high social intelligence are the base factors to improve health literacy and its consequences. This study was done in order to predict health literacy through social intelligence in students.

Material and Methods: A cross-sectional study was carried out in March 2018 among 218 second grade high school male students. The HELIA questionnaire and social intelligence questionnaire of Silva were used to assess predicting health literacy through social intelligence and statistical analysis performed using SPSS v.20.

Results: The mean scores of health literacy and social intelligence were118.34±18.81 and 69.27±8.6, respectively. Findings of the study indicated that there is a positive, significant and medium relationship between social intelligence and health literacy (p<0.01,r=0.208). Also, 11.6% of the variance in the health literacy of students was determined by the components of social awareness and social information processing (f = 8.39, p<0.01).

Conclusion: Social awareness and social information processing are considered as predictors of health literacy of students; therefore, organizing a training course in this field may increase the health literacy of students.