Unit:
Κατεύθυνση Γενική και Εξειδικευμένη Παιδιατρική: Κλινική Πράξη και ΈρευναLibrary of the School of Health Sciences
Supervisors info:
Περδικάρης Παντελεήμων, Επίκουρος Καθηγητής, Τμήμα Νοσηλευτικής, ΠΠ
Κουτελέκος Ιωάννης, Επίκουρος Καθηγητής, Τμήμα Νοσηλευτικής, ΠΑΔΑ
Σολδάτου Αλεξάνδρα, Επίκουρη Καθηγήτρια, Ιατρική Σχολή, ΕΚΠΑ
Original Title:
Σεξουαλική διαπαιδαγώγηση εφήβων στο σχολείο σε παγκόσμιο επίπεδο: Παρεμβάσεις για πρόληψη σεξουαλικώς μεταδιδόμενων νοσημάτων και ανεπιθύμητων εγκυμοσυνών
Translated title:
School-based sex education among adolescents worldwide: interventions for the prevention of sexually transmitted infections and unintended pregnancies
Summary:
BACKGROUND: Adolescents constitute a key population at risk of exposure to Sexually transmitted infections (STIs) and unintended pregnancies due to exposure to high-risk sexual behaviors. At the same time HIV ranks second among the leading causes of death among adolescents and the prevalence of unwanted pregnancies among adolescents worldwide is significantly high. The school plays a core role in the socialization and development of children and has been considered the appropriate environment for interventions to promote sexual and reproductive health. Sexual education has great potential in the direction of providing the necessary knowledge and skills to adolescents. School-based interventions to prevent sexually transmitted diseases and unintended pregnancies are vital to improving the Sexual and Reproductive Health of adolescents.
ΑΙΜ: The systematic review aims to evaluate the results of school-based sex education interventions performed on adolescents worldwide, aiming at preventing sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) and unintended pregnancies.
METHODOLOGY: The search of studies was conducted in the PubMed, Scopus, and CINAHL databases with Full Text from 15/3/2021 to 30/04/2021 with the following keywords “Sexual Education”, “School”, “Adolescents”, Teenagers”, “Sexually transmitted diseases”, “Sexually transmitted infections”, “Unintended pregnancies”, “Interventions”, “Prevention”. The articles should have been published in Greek or English language to be selected, as well as they should have been Randomized Control Trials (RCT) conducted among adolescent students aged 10-19 years. Furthermore, the studies should have aimed at the prevention of sexually transmitted diseases and unintended pregnancies and should have been conducted in a school environment and have been published from 01/01/2016 to 30/04/2021. The selection of the suitable articles and their separation into selection stages, up to the final number of articles used for the review was based on the PRISMA method.
RESULTS: A total of 2952 articles were found through search engines, of which 24 were eventually included in the final systematic review. A total of 59055 students participated in these 24 controlled randomized trials conducted in 13 countries. The grading of the strength of evidence is estimated that 45.83% of the studies were level I, while 54.17% were level II, as well as we found low risk of bias.
CONCLUSION: Our results suggest that school-based interventions to prevent STIs and unintended pregnancies are crucial to improving adolescent sexual and reproductive health. Our findings also show positive results in terms of improving adolescents' knowledge and attitudes through the respective interventions. Future studies should further investigate the effectiveness of similar programs. Finally, school nurses play an important role in sex education at school and their participation in relevant research and interventions is highly suggested.
Main subject category:
Health Sciences
Keywords:
Sex education, School, Adolescents, Sexually transmitted diseases, Unintended pregnancy
Number of references:
267
