The effect of group education on sexual knowledge and attitude of female students

Introduction: Sexual health is one of the most important aspects of adolescents and young people. High-risk sexual behaviors can result from incorrect attitudes and insufficient knowledge in the field of sexual issues. Therefore, the aim of this study was to investigate the effect of group education on knowledge and sexual attitude of female students.Materials and Methods: The present study is a two-group intervention study with pre-test and post-test design. 100 first semester female students of Hamadan University of Medical Sciences were selected by stratified random sampling method. They scored low to moderate sexual knowledge and attitudes scores based on the World Health Organization's Illustrative Questionnaire for interview-Surveys with Young People. Then the samples were divided into two groups of 50 experimental and control by permutation block method. Six 90-minute training sessions were held twice a week for the experimental group. Three weeks after the end of the classes, the sexual knowledge and attitude of students in both experimental and control groups were measured again. Data were analyzed using SPSS /21software.Results: There was a significant difference between the mean scores of knowledge and sexual attitude of female students before and after the intervention in the experimental group (p <0.05). Also, there was a significant difference between the mean scores of sexual knowledge and attitude of female students in the experimental and control groups after the intervention (P <0.05).Conclusion: Sexual health education can improve knowledge and improve sexual attitudes of young girls. It is recommended to provide informative education about sexual health to students upon entering universities who are in their late teens, with the aim of reducing problem solving, increasing knowledge and creating the right attitude in them.