Investigation the effects of comprehensive sexual health education on secondary school 5th grade students' attitudes towards sexual education, self-esteem and body appreciation

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of a sexual education program developed on the basis of comprehensive sexuality education on the self-esteem, body appreciation and attitudes towards sexual education of 5th grade students. A quasi-experimental design with pre-test, post-test and control group was used in this study. Participants of this research consisted of 5th grade students attending a middle school in Seyhan District of Adana in the 2020-2021 academic year. Data collection instruments were administered to 68 students in 4 groups, and 28 students were included in the research as the study groups. The sexual education program developed for secondary school students which is consisted of 6 sessions were applied on experimental group 90 minutes weekly. In addition, any education was not applied to the students in the control group. The data obtained from the scales were analyzed by Mixed-Design Two-Way Repeated Measures ANOVA (Split Plot ANOVA), Independent Sample T-Test, Mann-Whitney U Test and SPSS 22 package program was used. The results showed that the sexual education program applied to the experimental group had caused a statistically positive change on the self-esteem, body appreciation and attitudes towards sexual education of the 5th grade students. Keywords: Comprehensive sex education, sexuality, psychological counseling, school counseling, self-esteem, body appreciation, prevention