engleski

Use of internet and other media to find health information – a study among patients with STI

The use of internet to find health information was studied in different countries and in different populations (i.e. students). Most of the informations on the internet are written in English language, so for people who don’ t know it, these informations are not useful. The aim of this study was to analyze where patients with a STI find informations about STI and health in general. During a 3 months period 49 patients with a STI were diagnosed (age 29.5± 9.8 years), at the Department of Dermatovenereology, University Hospital Center, Rijeka. In the analyzed population, 67.4% of the patients had access to internet at home, 18.4% at school/university and 22.5% at the working place. Among them 92.3% have searched internet for health informations and 84.6% were interested in informations related to STI. In the examined population 81.6% understood English, 42.6% Italian, 22.5% German, 4.1% Spanish and 4.1% French language. Other resources of information were daily journals, magazines, books, television, radio, family members, friends and partner. Also, we analyzed the influence of the source of information on the sexual behavior of these patients (i.e. number of partners, use of condoms). Because many of the patients searched informations on the internet, suitable sites in Croatian should be created for patients and the general population.

Internet; Information; STI

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