Personal Hygiene Components in Iranian Children and Adolescent Magazines

Abstract

<strong>Background:</strong> The health of children and adolescents has been one of the main concerns of parents and teachers. Today, magazines are taken into account as useful tools for training these vulnerable groups. <strong>Objectives:</strong> The aim of this study was to analyze the health contents of children and adolescent magazines during years 2013 to 2014. <strong>Materials and Methods:</strong> This was an applied research and the method was content analysis. The analysis unit was page (text and image) of all children and adolescent magazines published during years 2013 and 2014 in Iran. The research was done based on Shannon entropy. The validity of the data-gathering tool was confirmed by experts in health education. Test-retest was used to determine the reliability of the tool and the correlation coefficient was 0.84. <strong>Results:</strong> In the mentioned magazines, most attention was towards nutrition components with 0.139 importance coefficient and sports and physical activity with 0.123 importance coefficient. While the least attention was devoted to puberty health component with 0.078 importance coefficient and smoking and drugs with 0.082 importance coefficient. <strong>Conclusions:</strong> Regarding the important role of magazines in preparing children and adolescences to have a healthy and happy life, it seems that despite their success in some areas, magazines couldn't help them in some categories such as puberty and addiction.