Cent Eur J Public Health 2013, 21(1):54-58 | DOI: 10.21101/cejph.a3808

Knowledge, Attitudes and Behaviour Towards Sexually Transmitted Diseases in Turkish Cypriot Adolescents

Aslı Feride Kaptanoğlu1, Kaya Süer2, Hüsrev Diktaş3, Evren Hınçal4
1 Department of Dermatology, Near East University Hospital, Nicosia, North Cyprus
2 Department of Infectious Diseases and Clinical Microbiology, Near East University Hospital, Nicosia, North Cyprus
3 Department of Infectious Diseases and Clinical Microbiology, Girne Military Hospital, Kyrenia, North Cyprus
4 Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Department of Mathematics, Near East University, Nicosia, North Cyprus

Background: The incidence of sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) is increasing among adolescents all around the world. There may be differences in knowledge and attitudes among different cultures and ethnic populations. The aim of this study is to determine knowledge, attitudes and behaviour of Turkish Cypriot adolescents related to STDs.

Objectives: To assess knowledge of STDs, attitudes towards sexual behaviour and STDs among the secondary school students.

Methods: A cross sectional study, with a sample size of 423 students, was conducted by using a semi-structured questionnaire. Simple random sampling method was applied during the selection of the sample.

Results: The mean age of all participants was 15.61±1.22, 211 (49.88%) of them were male and 212 (50.12%) female. The majority of students (91.25%) stated that they had some knowledge about STDs; hovewer, 8.75% of the participants did not have any knowledge at all. Most of them, 42.32% described school as a source of information on STDs, nonetheless, only 7.57% of the group cited health care professionals as the information source. The majority of students (97.64%) has never been treated for STDs. Among 423 applicants, 93.14% indicated that they would have appreciated information about STDs during the high school years.

Conclusions: There is a general understanding that the students are willing to participate and are in need of seminars that will be held about STDs during high school attendance. Furthermore, awareness raising educational events on this matter should be reviewed and revised in order to come up with more powerful ways of fighting against STDs transmission in this young population group of Turkish Cypriot (TC) community.

Keywords: sexually transmitted diseases, Cyprus, Turkish, adolescent, knowledge, behaviour

Received: June 27, 2012; Revised: January 4, 2013; Accepted: January 4, 2013; Published: March 1, 2013  Show citation

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Kaptanoğlu AF, Süer K, Diktaş H, Hınçal E. Knowledge, Attitudes and Behaviour Towards Sexually Transmitted Diseases in Turkish Cypriot Adolescents. Cent Eur J Public Health. 2013;21(1):54-58. doi: 10.21101/cejph.a3808. PubMed PMID: 23741902.
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