KNOWLEDGE AND ATTITUDES OF ADOLESCENTS ABOUT SEX EDUCATION

Abstract

Learning about sexuality is a life long process and a fundamental part of every person's socializations. Sex education helps adolescents to be aware of their sexual facts and knowledge that is necessary for responsible behaviours and attitudes towards sex for a healthy sexual life. Such education helps adolescents to reduce their risk of potentially negative outcomes. ( 1' 2)

Sex education is described as the education about human sexuality such as, the anatomy and the physiology of the reproductive systems, the physical and emotional changes associated with puberty, sexual relationships, reproduction, sexually transmitted diseases .e.g. Genital herpes, Gonorrhoea, Chlamydia, Syphilis, Hepatitis B virus (HBV), Hepatitis C virus (HCV), human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) and Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS) and other aspects of human sexual behavior like moral, spiritual and cultural aspect. Sex education should be started before puberty by parents, caregivers or added in school programs. (I, 3, 4)

All over the world there are 33.4 million people living with HIV/AIDS in 2008, 31.3 million adults and 2.1 million children younger than 15 years. Approximately two-thirds of these people live in Africa, another 20 percent live in Asia and 13, 000 of them lived in Egypt. Approximately 6.000 young people (under 25 years old) become infected with HIV every day. HIV/AIDS is one of the causes that increase adolescent's mortality rate. There are more than 25 million people with HIV/AIDS have died since the first AIDS cases were identified in

1981. In 2008 alone, HIV/AIDS caused the death of approximately 2 million people world wide. (S-9)

A number of objectives of healthy people 2010 address issues of human sexuality, pregnancy prevention and STDS and HIV prevention. These issues are important for the health of adolescents. Therefore, it is imperative that adolescents have age- appropriate sex education before becoming sexually active