The effect of sexual health education on the knowledge and opinions of Başkent University Vocational School students

The purpose of this study is to reveal the current sexual health knowledge of young individuals who have completed high school education and are enrolled in the first year of a higher education institution, and then evaluate the impact of an applied educational model using an interactive training method. In this intervention study, students from the Social Sciences Vocational School of Başkent University were selected as the control group, while students from the Health Services Vocational School, who are expected to benefit the most from the education and lead the community in terms of health, were selected as the intervention group. Case study method was used in the educational presentations. Three different educational sessions were implemented based on three important topics in the context of sexual health, using explanatory presentations incorporating case stories and their information. Before and after the implementation of the education, questions regarding the stories of the cases and the content of the presentations were prepared for the pre-test and post-test.The first case focused on sexually transmitted infections, the second case on contraceptive methods, and the final case on gender inequality in society.Seventy-four students from the intervention group and 39 students from the control group participated in the pre-test. Four sessions of educational presentations were conducted for the intervention group between October 13, 2022, and November 3, 2022, followed by the post-test. Fifty-six students from the intervention group and 34 students from the control group participated in the post-test. Participants generally have low sexual health knowledge, indicating a need for education. All seven hypotheses regarding knowledge increase were accepted. Five hypotheses regarding changes in opinions were accepted, two were rejected, and the remaining two could not be tested. The educational intervention was found to be effective in increasing sexual health knowledge.As a result, the educational intervention using a unique educational method is effective in increasing knowledge/information. For the change of views, which is expected to take a longer time, it is thought that trainings should be given in formal education starting from a young age to ensure the formation of a perspective. The sexual health education model can be expanded by adding different case studies and topics, andprovision of a similar educational approach for similar age groups can be disseminatedin higher education institutions.