Conocimientos sobre sexualidad en estudiantes universitarios

Abstract

This study analyzed how much students in the first and third years of university knew about sex. The subjects covered included anatomy-physiology, pregnancy-birth-puerperium, birth control methods and venereal disease. The university students studied one of the following careers: medicine, law, engineering or teaching. It is interesting to note, particularity from the point of view of avoiding early pregnancies, that the knowledge of birth control methods was far below that of the other subjects. The following are associated with a higher number of points in the survey; being female, married, medical student, or in the third year of university; to have been to a single sex school; to be the son of a member of the armed forces. These results are discussed in relation to three factors: formal education, experience and individual interest. The most frequently used sources of information are teachers or books, with the family taking a secondary place. Students estimated their own knowledge adequately, and more than half of them classified themselves in the lowest categories of knowledge. A relationship was found between good self-evaluation, higher marks in the study, using books rather than teachers as the main source of information and using a large number of sources to obtain information.