Abstract:
Background: Sexual education aims to strengthen the ability of adolescents into making the
correct choices regarding relationships, sexuality and health. Meanwhile, it does not encourage
them to engage in sexual activities. It gradually equips and empowers children and young
people with information, skills and positive values to understand their sexuality, have safe
relationships and take responsibility for their own and other people’s sexual health and
wellbeing.
Objective: To identify the level of knowledge and attitudes on sexual education among
teenagers
Methods: A descriptive, cross-sectional study was conducted among 100 (13-19 years)
teenagers. Convenient sampling technique was used to select the research sample of school
students in Matale District, Sri Lanka. Data were collected using a self-administered
questionnaire.
Results: The majority of the students (53.1%) have received knowledge of sexual education
from their parents. The respondents were asked whether the sexual education was useful for
their life and the majority said that it is useful (86.8%). A 26.5% of the sample had felt very
comfortable while the least amount of the sample 2% had felt very uncomfortable during the
lesson. Half of the participants have negatively responded on the acceptability for boys and
girls of their age to have the opposite gender partner during the lesson on sexual education.
The 80% of students indicated that they knew contraception methods and few respondents had
mentioned family planning methods and 20% of the sample indicated that they did not know
about any contraception methods.
Conclusions: The parents support on sexual education is at an average level, however, most of
the students had identified that the sexual education is useful for their life. Considering their
attitudes, the students’ acceptability for the opposite gender partner during the lesson was
negative though their level of knowledge states at a good level.
