Salud reproductiva en adolescentes escolares: conocimientos, actitudes y conductas en ambos sexos en una comuna de Santiago de Chile / Reproductive health in school adolescents: knowledge, actitud and behaviour in both sexs in a community at Santiago de Chile

RESUMO

Nine hundred forty eight teenagers (600 female) from a public school of the poorest communities of Santiago were surveyed about knowledge and practice on sexuality and reproductive health. Twenty four percent of females and 40 percent of males did not talk about their problems at home, instead they talked preferentially with their friends. Half of the sample attributed a risk of pregnancy to the first sexual intercourse; 67 percent did not know the infertile phase of the menstrual cycle and 20 percent did not identify 2 sexually transmitted diseases. Sixty percent considered rhyth technique as a safe fertility control method, 60 percent of males and 50 percent females considered masturbation as risk, 57 percent of males and 49 percent of females estimated that condoms could be reused and between 5 and 16 percent of the sample correctly identified AIDS modes of transmission. Fifty percent had a couple and 23 percent of males and 17 percent of females had a sexual intercourse in the last six months; of these, 45 percent of women and 27 percent of men used a contraceptive method. Four percent of women and 6 percent of men became involved in a pregnancy and 57 percent of these terminated in abortions. It is concluded that knowledge about sexuallity and reproductive biology among low income teenagers is scanty