Tuesday, 21 Nov 2006 08:26
Encouraging good contraception use is key to sex education
A revolutionary technique of sex education is no more effective than conventional methods, researchers from Glasgow University have claimed.
Revealing their comparison of an enhanced theoretically-based sex education programme known as Share with traditional, fact-based learning methods, the medical experts say the differences between the two are negligible.
The study, published today in the online version of the British Medical Journal (BMJ), tracked the progress of the young women five years after they had been through the two different types of programme when aged between 13 and 15.
The Share programme involves an intensive five-day training period which uses small-scale group work and games combined with factual information conveyed through leaflets to endow the participating teenagers with practical skills rather than the theoretical values emphasised by traditional techniques.
"Unfortunately… [the study] shows that pregnancy and abortion rates in the girls who were taught using the enhanced programme were no different from rates in the control group who were given conventional school sex education," Dr Marion Henderson, lead researcher on the project, said.
"It is clear that economic circumstances still largely determine the likelihood of teenage pregnancy," she added.
"To have a stronger impact on the sexual health of young people, alternative interventions should be considered."
Efforts to develop effective methods of sex education are particularly important in Britain, which, the study points out, has the highest rate of teenage pregnancies in Europe.