Stress literacy in Australian adolescents

Stress literacy is a term that refers to knowledge about stress and stress management techniques. Levels of stress literacy were examined in more than nine hundred Australian adolescents by providing a short stress-management education session and assessing stress literacy using a pre-post survey design. It was found that while adolescents had a reasonable knowledge of the symptoms of stress and effective stress management techniques, the likelihood of adolescents seeking help for stress or using these stress management techniques was low. The implications of these findings are discussed.