A study to assess the knowledge about sexual health among male students of junior colleges of an urban area

Background: Sexuality is an important part of personality of adolescents. The age of sexual debut is falling globally. The subject of adolescent sexuality is taboo in most societies. Since 2007 sexual health education program has been banned in six states including Maharashtra and Karnataka. This may lead to misconceptions about sexual heath knowledge and practices among young people. Objective: The aim was to assess the knowledge about sexual health among male students of junior colleges of an urban area and to evaluate the change in their knowledge after imparting sexual health education. Settings and Design: Pre-post-intervention study. Materials and Methods: All 245 male students of 11 th standard of all three educational streams of two junior colleges were included in the study. The data analysis was performed using Statistical Package for Social Sciences 18. Results: Science students had "adequate" knowledge about sexual health when compared to arts and commerce students (P = 0.004). Students whose parents were unskilled and semiskilled by occupation had "inadequate" knowledge about sexual health when compared with students whose parents were skilled by occupation (P < 0.05). Education of parents had positive effect on the knowledge about sexual health of students (P = 0.062). In posttest, the knowledge about sexual health of students was found to have increased significantly when compared to pretest. The mean posttest score was 12.61 (standard deviation [SD] 3.12), which was significantly higher than the mean pretest score of 6.34 (SD 3.23) (P < 0.001). Students from nuclear families had "adequate" knowledge about sexual health when compared to students from joint families (P = 0.158) Conclusion: Imparting knowledge about sexual health in adolescent age will be beneficial to the students in avoiding risky sexual behavior. Such educational programs must be given due importance to achieve desirable behavior change among them