Sexual Health Knowledge of U.S. Medical Students: A National Survey

Warner, Christina; Carlson, Samantha; Crichlow, Renée; Ross, Michael W.

doi:10.1016/j.jsxm.2018.05.019

Cited by 48 publications

(45 citation statements)

References 25 publications

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“…Although medical students had a higher awareness of the impact of age on fertility than non-medical students, the general knowledge of fertility was low also among medical students. Similar results have been found in American, Serbian, Ukrainian, and Saudi Arabian samples (21)(22)(23)(24)(25). More than 95% of Serbian students, regardless of gender, wanted to have children; most indicated three as the desired number of children.…”

Section: Fertility Awareness Among Health Care Providers and Medical supporting

confidence: 86%

Knowledge about the impact of age on fertility: a brief review

Delbaere

Verbiest

Tydén

2020

Upsala Journal of Medical Sciences

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Delayed childbearing is currently a major challenge in reproductive medicine as increased age has an important impact on successful conception, both in natural and in assisted reproduction. There is a lack of knowledge about the impact of age on fertility, even in highly educated populations. A number of initiatives have been taken to increase fertility awareness. Health care providers have been encouraged to talk with patients about their reproductive life plan (RLP) for almost a decade based on recommendations from the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention. This concept has been explored successfully in Swedish contraception counselling. A growing number of online interventions aim to raise fertility awareness. These websites or interactive tools provide relevant information for individuals and couples as they consider whether they want children, when they should have them, and how many they may wish to have. These interventions are important, because research depicts that knowledge helps people in their decision-making process. With new fertility preservations such as egg freezing now available, additional education is needed to be sure that women and couples are well informed about the cost and low success rates of this intervention.

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Section: Fertility Awareness Among Health Care Providers and Medical supporting

confidence: 86%

Knowledge about the impact of age on fertility: a brief review

Delbaere

Verbiest

Tydén

2020

Upsala Journal of Medical Sciences

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“…Many recommendations advocate the inclusion of sexual health issues in graduate education for the healthcare professions 36, 37, 38. However, including such subjects in medical education has made slow progress to date 12, 13, 14, 25. The current study adds to the studies conducted in Europe by revealing students’ perceptions on deficient or missing sexual health education at an Austrian medical university.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 86%

“…To date, sexual health education in medical school remains underrepresented 12 . In the U.S. few students report having medical courses on human sexuality, 13 and sexual health education is reported to be deficient 14 . Also in Europe topics about human sexuality are rarely the subject of detailed training during medical education 15 …”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Medical Students Indicate the Need for Increased Sexuality Education at an Austrian Medical University

2019

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Introduction: The quantity and quality of education in the field of human sexuality vary greatly in medical education programs in the United States and Europe. Aim: The current state of medical school education with regard to human sexuality was assessed at an Austrian medical university. Methods: Self-constructed questionnaires and the Beliefs About Sexual Functioning Scale were filled out by 391 medical students (mean age ¼ 24.0, SD ¼ 2.5; 52.4% women, 47.6% men). Descriptive statistics are reported for summarizing students' responses, and structural equation models were calculated to reveal associations between variables of interest. Main Outcome Measures: The outcome variable in the structural equation models was students' confidence in addressing sexual health concerns of patients. Results: Most students were not instructed in sexual history taking (96.9%), sexual behavior (94.3%), love (97.4%) or sexuality in elderly persons (95.1%), and they reported having poor knowledge of these topics. Most students (72.5%) reported having little or no confidence in addressing patients' sexual health concerns. The number of addressed topics was positively associated with male (b ¼ 0.47, P < .001) and female students' (b ¼ 0.52, P < .001) knowledge. Knowledge was positively associated with male (b ¼ .49, P < 0.001) and female students' (b ¼ 0.33, P < .001) confidence in addressing sexual health concerns and was negatively associated with stereotypical sexual functioning beliefs in the male subsample (b ¼ À0.26, P ¼ .009). Conclusions: Most medical students revealed that the teaching of important sexual health content (eg, sexual history taking) was deficient at this medical university. Education in sexual health issues needs to be increased to positively influence students' knowledge of and consequently their confidence regarding dealing with patients' sexual health concerns. Komlenac N, Siller H, Hochleitner M. Medical Students Indicate the Need for Increased Sexuality Education at an Austrian Medical University. Sex Med 2019;7:318e325.

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“…Since a survey of 1,104 US medical scholars evidenced unsatisfactory preparedness to manage SHE issues, especially in the area of safety and prevention 64 , a 1 year experimental peer-to-peer program of SHE delivered by medical students to high school scholars (aged 12-13 years) was recently tested in Rhodes Island during academic year 2015-16. The latter program consisted of 12 sessions of SHE over the course of one year, delivered to small groups of 11-15 pupils by 2 volunteer medical students in presence of a school head teacher 65 .…”

Section: Sexual Health Education According Tomentioning

confidence: 99%

Birth control knowledge among freshmen of four Italian universities

Cegolon

Bortolotto

Bellizzi³

et al. 2020

Sci Rep

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Since sexual health education (SHE) is not mandatory in Italian schools, we conducted a survey on freshmen of four Italian university campuses in 2012 to investigate the respective level of sexual health knowledge (SHK) in relation to birth control, with the aim to inform public health policy makers. A convenience strategy was employed to sample 4,552 freshmen registered with various undergraduate courses at four Italian universities: Padua university (Veneto Region); university of Milan (Lombardy Region); university of Bergamo (Lombardy Region); university of Palermo (Sicily Region). We investigated the level of SHK on birth control using 6 proxy indicators: (1) the average length of a woman’s period [outcome with 3 levels: wrong (base) vs. acceptable vs. correct]; (2) the most fertile interval within a woman’s period (binary outcome: correct vs. wrong answer); (3) the event between the end of a period and the beginning of the next cycle (binary outcome: correct vs. wrong answer); (4) the average survival of spermatozoa in the womb (binary outcome: correct vs. wrong answer); (5) the concept of contraception (binary outcome: correct vs. wrong answer); (6) the efficacy of various contraceptives to prevent unintended pregnancies (linear score: 0–17). We fitted 6 separate models of multiple regression: multinomial for outcome 1; logistic for outcomes 2, 3, 4, 6; linear for outcome 6. Statistical estimates were adjusted for a number of socio-demographic factors. Results were expressed as odds ratios (OR) for the 4 multiple logistic regression models, linear coefficients (RC) for the linear regression model and relative risk ratio (RRR) for the multinomial logistic regression model. The level of significance of each risk estimate was set at 0.05. The level of SHK of freshmen sampled was rather low, as 60% interviewees did not know the average length of a woman’s period, the average survival of spermatozoa in the womb and the concept of contraception, whilst the most fertile interval within a woman’s period was known only to 55% of interviewees. The mean score of SHK on the efficacy of various contraceptive methods was only 5 (scale 0–17). Some categories of students were consistently and significantly less knowledgeable on birth control at multivariable analysis: males; students from the university of Palermo; those with vocational secondary school education and those not in a romantic relationship at the time the survey was conducted. The results of this survey clearly call for the introduction of SHE programs in Italian schools, as already done in several European countries. School SHE should start as early as possible, ideally even before secondary school. SHE should be holistic and delivered with a multiple agency coordinated approach involving the Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Education, University and Scientific Research (MIUR), families, schools, public health departments, primary health care providers, pharmacists, media, other.

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Sexual Health Knowledge of U.S. Medical Students: A National Survey

Cited by 48 publications

References 25 publications

Knowledge about the impact of age on fertility: a brief review

Knowledge about the impact of age on fertility: a brief review

Medical Students Indicate the Need for Increased Sexuality Education at an Austrian Medical University

Birth control knowledge among freshmen of four Italian universities

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