Adolescent sexual health knowledge and preferences: what adolescents want from sexual health websites

Background: Over the last decade, the internet has evolved into a main source for adolescent sexual health knowledge. The vast amount of information available online bears the potential to improve knowledge and facilitate healthy behaviour. However, websites providing misleading or false information can have a detrimental effect on health. Therefore, it is critical that adolescents find, identify, and use websites that contain correct and reliable sexual health information. Objectives: The objective of this study is to evaluate students’ preferences when accessing sexual health information online. Methods:The cross-sectional survey was conducted in a regular school lesson in the 9th grades of 13 Berlin secondary schools. Students were asked to evaluate how important they find different aspects of sexual health websites. Using bivariate and multivariable analyses, differences by sex, age, migratory background, and school type were quantified. Results: Of 1,190 eligible students, 1,177 (98.9%) chose to participate. The mean age was 14.6 years, 52.5% were male, and 52.9% had at least one foreign-born parent. Participants hailed from the three participating school types in virtually equal parts. The most important aspects of a sexual health website were an easily comprehensible language, a clear information layout, and the reliability of a website’s publisher. The visual style of a website was least frequently cited as important. There were particularly significant differences by gender in the importance attributed to publisher reliability: whilst 84.9% of female participants found this aspect important, only 74.2% of boys did likewise (P < .001). Significant differences were also demonstrated in multivariable analysis. The odds ratio for boys to deem publisher reliability as important was significantly lower than for girls, as were the odds ratios for students with a migrant background and students attending the lowest tier of schools. Discussion: Sexual health websites can improve the sexual health knowledge of ...