Status of reproductive health knowledge for junior high school students in Guangzhou city

ObjectiveTo understand the status of reproductive health knowledge for junior high school students in Guangzhou city and provide the base data for reproductive health education.MethodsA total of 1 210 students including 657 boys and 553 girls aged 12–15 years were surveyed with anonymous self-administrated questionnaire. The students were from a middle school in suburb of Guangzhou city. The questionnaire contained basic concepts of reproduction, love, sex, contraceptives, abortion and sexually transmitted diseases (STDs). Analysis consisted of descriptive statistics and Chi square tests for differences between boys and girls.ResultsThe students mostly had experienced menarche (94%) or first spermatorrhea (83.6%). About 58.4% of students just knew little about process of puberty, fertilization, and contraception. Far more boys than girls considered that the effect of abortion on physical injury was harmless (30.4% and 9.6%, P<0.001). More than 60% of respondents knew the route of transmission of STDs well, but were poor understanding of adverse impact of STDs. The majority of the students did not consider sexual relationship acceptable at their age, a viewpoint that was more strongly held by girls (61.6%) than boys (45.1%) (P<0.001). Just 35.5% of boys would refuse when the lovers required to have a sex activity, far less than girls (76.1%) (P<0.001). The rate of sex intercourses among students was 5%, and a slightly higher proportion (46%) had never used contraception among those who had sexual activity. The demands of students on reproductive health were mainly on how to deal with the relationship with lovers (56.0%), knowledge on sexual health and menses (41.7%), sex moral knowledge (48.3%), contraception (45.0%), and preventive measures of STDs/acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) (47.0%).ConclusionThe reproductive health knowledge for the students was at very low level. There were some differences on the knowledge mastered by boys and girls while the sexual opinion of boys was more open than girls. It was urgent to carry out education among junior high school students to promote their reproductive health.