Original article
Two steps forward and one step back? Australian secondary students’ sexual health knowledge and behaviors 1992–2002

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jadohealth.2005.04.003Get rights and content

Abstract

Purpose

To report on changes in the sexual health knowledge and sexual and risk behaviors of year 10 and 12 Australian school students between 1992 and 2002.

Methods

Surveys were administered at five yearly intervals to a total of 6781 students in 263 government secondary schools in all Australian states and territories.

Results

Analysis of data from the three survey administrations shows high levels of knowledge concerning human immunodeficiency virus/acquired immune deficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS), but a small but consistent decline since 1992. Knowledge about sexually transmitted infections and hepatitis remains poor. In 2002, there was an increase in the number of students reporting ever having had sexual intercourse, and this was most pronounced for year 10 students. The number of young men in year 10 who reported having three or more partners had doubled since 1997 to 33%. More year 10 young women also reported having intercourse with three or more partners. Consistency of condom use has improved over time; however, 39% still report condom use only sometimes.

Conclusion

School-based sexual health education provides a critical basis for ensuring that young people begin to experience sex safely and with an appropriate knowledge base.

Section snippets

Sample

This study used a representative random sample based on Australian Bureau of Statistics data on school populations in 1992, 1997, and 2002. A two-stage sampling method was used at each administration of the survey. In the first stage, schools were randomly selected with a probability proportional to the size of the target population stratified by State/Territory. The smaller States/Territories were over-sampled to improve the precision of the results for those States/Territories. A replacement

Results

As the mean scale scores in Table 2 show, students reported high levels of accurate HIV/AIDS knowledge across the three surveys.

Despite this, there was a significant decline in HIV/AIDS knowledge between 1992, 1997, and 2002 (F1,255 = 71.82, p < .001). The decrease in HIV/AIDS knowledge was consistent for both young men and women at each school year level. At each survey wave, students in year 12 exhibited significantly higher levels of accurate knowledge than their year 10 counterparts (1992:

Discussion

The surveys reported here represent one of a small number of nationally representative, serial surveys of school-aged young people. It must be noted, however, that limitations include relying on self-report, excluding young people outside the school system, modest response rates, and only moderate internal consistency of knowledge scales.

Comparison of data from the three administrations of this survey of secondary students in Australia over a 10-year period reveals findings that are both

Acknowledgments

This project was funded by the Australian Government Department of Health and Aging, Australia.

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Copyright © 2006 Society for Adolescent Medicine. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.