P-132: Female Adolescents Attitudes toward Sexual and Reproductive Health Education in Iran

Background: Despite clear reasons for necessity of sexual health education for adolescents, it is a contested issue and has faced challenges in most cultures. Adolescents, specially females in Iran have so many unmet needs in sexual health issues, yet appropriateness of sexual health education to them is controversy. This study aimed to examine female adolescents attitudes to sexual health education for female adolescents in Iran. Materials and Methods: In this descriptive study, a questionnaire was developed to measure the adolescents’ attitudes regarding sexual health education issues. After measuring the construct validity and reliability of the instrument, it was utilized in a survey in 2011 on 359 adolescent girls in Mashhad and Ahvaz schools who were selected through cluster sampling. Results: The majority of the adolescent girls were agree to the necessity of sexual education, school-based sexual education, low quality of current sexual education, reluctance of reticence and censoring in sexual education, the important supportive role of adults, the gradual nature of sexual education in accordance with developmental stages, and also providing an inclusive sexual health educational program for adolescents. Conclusion: It is the time to take steps towards overcoming the cultural taboos and barriers to sexual health education by advocacy and developing and implementing programs with comprehensive contents, instead of being entrapped in the circle of suspicion and distrust.