A study on the effects of a sexual health life-skills teaching program on sexual health knowledge, attitude and behavior intention of the seventh grade students in a high school in Taiwan

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of life-skills teaching program in sexual health education on the seventh grade students' sexual health knowledge, attitude, and behavior intension. Methods: A quasi-experimental research method was used in this study. In total, 133 students in a junior high school in Central Taiwan were recruited by purposive sampling. The subjects were divided into the experimental group (n=69) and control group (n=64). The students in the experimental group received five units of teaching courses for ten hours while the students in the control group did not. A self-administered structured questionnaire was designed to serve as the pre-test and post-test instrument. The questionnaire consists of scales of knowledge (r=0.70), attitude (Cronbach's α=0.84), and behavioral intention (Cronbach's α=0.87). All the participants took the pretest one week before the intervention and the posttest one week after the intervention, and the post posttest was conducted eight weeks after the intervention. Results: One week after the intervention, the sexual health knowledge, attitude, and behavior intention of the experimental group showed instantly significant improvement. Eight weeks after the intervention, the sexual health knowledge and attitude of the experimental group continued to make progress, while the sustainability of the sexual health behavior intention was not significant. Conclusion: The results indicated that the sexual health life-skills teaching program had positive effects on adolescents. The results of this study shall serve as a reference for the school health educators to implement the sexual heath education program.