The relationship between personal information and health literacy about cannabis of students at one university

Abstract

The objectives of this descriptive study were to examine university students’ 1) health literacy related to their knowledge and understanding about cannabis; access to information about cannabis use; health communications about cannabis; media literacy and information about cannabis; decision- making about cannabis use and cannabis use behaviors; and 2) the relationship between the students’ demographic characteristics and student health literacy about cannabis. Proportional stratified sampling was used to recruit 390 student-participants from a single university. Data were collected from August to October 2022. The Health Literacy about Cannabis Questionnaire was developed and examined by content experts, yielding an IOC of 0.7-0.9.  The Kuder-Richardson formula was used to test the reliability of the knowledge and understanding of cannabis sections of the questionnaire, producing a KR-20 = 0.61.  Internal consistency for the other components of the questionnaires were calculated using Cronbach’s alpha coefficient, and they produced alphas of 0.89, 0.91, 0.91 and 0.98  respectively. Descriptive statistics were used to analyze the data. Pearson’s chi-square tests were used to analyze the associations between the participants’ demographic characteristics and their health literacy about cannabis.

The study results showed that the scores for knowledge and understanding about cannabis; access to information about cannabis use; health communications about cannabis use; and media literacy and information about cannabis were moderate at approximately 87.2%, 61.5%, 72.3% and 69.5%, respectively. Scores for decision-making about cannabis use and cannabis use behaviors were low, having scores of 56.9% and 48.2%, respectively. Gender and income per month had a significant positive relationship with health literacy about cannabis (p<.01). Faculty of study and grade point average also had significant positive relationships with health literacy about cannabis (p<.05). No correlations were found between age, the year in the program of study, or residential characteristics and the participants’ health literacy about cannabis. The study’s findings suggest that educational institutions should have a policy in place to promote health literacy regarding cannabis among their students which provides students with access to health information about cannabis; health communications about cannabis use; media literacy about making good decisions about cannabis use; and cannabis use behaviors.