T10-P-01 Sexual attitudes and sexual behaviour of Croatian adolescents

Objective To assess sexual attitudes of Croatian adolescents aged 17 and 18 and to investigate sexual behaviour in the same population. Design and methods 153 adolescents listening to the lecture on sexual behaviour were offered a questionnaire containing three sets of questions: on the level of convenience when talking about sexuality with parents and friends, on sexual attitudes, and on the actual sexual behaviour. Results 82% of the adolescents responded to the questionnaire. Female adolescents were less comfortable when talking about sexuality with fathers compared to mothers. Three quarter of male and half of female adolescents thought homosexuality was not normal. Twenty percent of adolescent had negative attitudes toward masturbation of adults and toward sexual activity of elderly. Masturbation was frequent activity: 95.5% of boys and half of the girls masturbated, with frequency of 3.3 times a week for boys, and 3.7 times a week for girls. Half of the boys and 64% of girls had coitus, and the average number of partners was 2.1 for boys and 2.4 for girls. Female adolescent who smoked and those who masturbated had coitus in higher percentages; whereas there was no such connection in male adolescents. Conclusion Croatian adolescents are similar to adolescents from other countries. The main difference (in this study) is that female adolescents are more sexually active than male. Also there was the same percentage of male and female adolescents who had three or more partners.