Principal component analysis on current situation of health knowledge among high school students in Jiangsu province

Objective To examine the current situation of health knowledge among high school students in 13 cities of Jiangsu province and to provide a basis for effective health education.Methods We got a sample of 5 482 students selected with two-stage cluster sampling method.We investigated the students through a self-administered questionnaire about five domains of health-related knowledge.Results The awareness rate of health-related knowledge about health behavior and lifestyle,disease prevention,mental health,development and adolescent health,and emergency safety and risk-avoiding was 79.4%,80.6%,96.1%,86.6%,and 96.2%,respectively,in the students,with significant differences in health behavior and lifestyle,mental health,development,and emergency safety and risk-avoiding between the boys and the girls(P<0.01 for all).There were significant differences in all domains of health-related knowledge among the students from central,southern,and northern Jiangsu province,except for development and adolescent health(P<0.01 for all).We sorted the scores of health-related knowledge for the students from 13 cities in Jiangsu province with principal component analysis and comprehensive evaluation function and the students from Yangzhou city had the highest score.Conclusion The current situation of health knowledge in high school students in Jiangsu province is good;however there are still many problems such as imbalanced health education,gender and geographic differences.