Evaluation of a South Carolina abstinence education initiative

Introduction: The program's mission is to educate adolescents and adults on the consequences of teen sexual activity including the medical, social, economic, and legal impacts.

Methods: Evaluation of the Abstinence Education program consisted of three parts: testing teacher preparation, testing students, and assessing knowledge and attitudes of attendees in community outreach events. Assessment of teachers, students, and attendees to community events consisted of administering surveys or tests with knowledge-based, attitude/behavioral and demographic items. . Results: To date, program participation includes 150 teachers and 15,000 students in the public schools, and 120 adults and 300 children and adolescents in faith-based settings. Results of teacher training evaluations showed significant improvement in knowledge scores and changes in attitudes with respect to abstinence education. Preliminary results from analysis of the attitude/behavioral items indicate possible changes in student behavior. Demographic data will allow us to disaggregate the averages by sex and race.

Conclusions: The teacher-training program has demonstrated significant results. The transfer of knowledge to students clearly occurs in the classroom setting, although it appears that the ninth graders had more trouble with the curriculum, or else the assessment instrument is not well matched to the curriculum. The abstinence only curriculum appears to affect attitudes and self-reported behavior, as demonstrated by the behavioral items on the pre- and post-tests. To judge results of long-term behavior changes will require more time and a follow-up study. Use of the pre/post test method has been demonstrated to measure changes in knowledge, attitudes and behavior in this population.