Impact of educational intervention on common beliefs about sex among adolescent health sciences students

Abstract

Background: A majority of educational programs place emphasis on sexually transmitted diseases, abortion, and contraception but ignore the broader questions of sexual experience, anatomy, and cultural myths. The aim of the present study was to explore the impact of our intervention on these ignored domains. To ascertain the sex-related knowledge of students and note gender-wise differences. To explore which domains were affected least by educational intervention and which the most. Methods: Nine lectures were delivered to a total of 488 students. They filled the Knowledge Subscale Derogatis' Inventory (21 items; dichotomous) before and 2 h after the lectures, responses were anonymously collected in a ballot box. The lecture was of an hour and followed by 20 min of Q/A sessions. Emphasis was placed on sexual response cycle, interpersonal relationships, sexual fantasies, and prevalent myths. Results: There were 450 respondents pretest, and 414 in the posttest. In both groups, girls were in majority (69.6% and 73.9%). The mean knowledge scores of both groups were 7.88 (sd3.26) and 15.70 (sd3.42). The difference was significant (P < 0.0001). Boys had significantly higher scores than girls at pretest (t = 9.274; P < 0.0001), but at posttest a greater improvement in scores of girls, mitigating the initial difference (t = 0.339; P = 0.734). Statistically significant improvement was found in every item. Yet, significant gender-related differences persisted in a few items. Conclusions: Poor knowledge regarding sex among adolescent students in apparent is the study. Girls have a significantly lesser knowledge. The lectures mitigated the difference in knowledge between both the genders. Human sexuality training programs in India must include the domains of a knowledge deficit.