HEALTH LITERACY ON COVID-19 AMONG FIRST YEAR NURSING STUDENT

Abstract

Introduction: Health literacy is a person's ability to be able to obtain, process, and understand basic health information and service needs needed for making appropriate health decisions. One way to improve health literacy is through access to health information on the internet. Student as agent of change has the obligation to help the community in applying new habit adaptation to prevent COVID-19 transmission. The purpose of this study is to identify the relationship between the frequency of internet use and health literacy in first year nursing students. Methodology: This research is descriptive and correlational using a cross-sectional approach. Total sampling is used in this study with 148 students as respondent. The instruments used in the study were the respondent's check list form of internet usage and the Short-Form Health Literacy Survey Tool (HLS-SF-12). Research findings: 47,3% student was using the internet several times per week, while 44,6% student level of health literacy is high. Further analysis revealed that there is no correlation between frequency of internet usage with health literacy p-value >0,05 (0,232). Conclusions: The use of the internet for health purposes does not have a significant relationship with health literacy in first year nursing students. Therefore, it is recommended to integrate health literacy into the learning process, such as in health promotion courses.