Sexual health in adolescents

doi:10.1136/bmj.39087.374653.BE

BMJ 2007;334:103-104 (20 January), doi:10.1136/bmj.39087.374653.BE

Editorials

Sexual health in adolescents

"Saved sex" and parental involvement are key to improving outcomes

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

Despite increasing provision of school sex education,teenage sexual health in the United Kingdom is in overall decline,with increasing rates of terminations and sexually transmittedinfections in under 18s outweighing recent modest reductionsin conception rates in this age group.¹ ² ^w1

Counterintuitively, rather than improving sexualhealth, sex behaviour interventions can make it worse.^w2 Moststudies on sex education programmes in schools examine intermediateoutcomes only, such as pupil satisfaction or reported condomuse. This often facilitates premature false claims of success,whereas more robust outcome measures such as rates of terminations,unplanned conceptions, and sexually transmitted infections showno benefit.

In this week's BMJ Henderson and colleaguesreport the effect of a theoretically based teacher deliveredsex education programme (SHARE) on registered conceptions andterminations.³ The trial found no significant difference betweenthe intervention and control groups in National Health Serviceregistered conceptions (per 1000 pupils: 300 SHARE v . . . [Full text of this article]

Trevor Stammers, lecturer in healthcare ethics

¹ St Mary's University College, Twickenham, London TW1 4SX

tgstammers@doctors.org.uk

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