Sexual Health Knowledge and Attitude among the Sexually Abused Adolescents: A Single Centre Study

Introduction: Sexual education is an important step to prevent unwanted pregnancy, abortions and sexual transmitted diseases (STDs) in adolescent. Assessment of the sexual health knowledge and the attitude towards premarital sexual activity are essential to fill in this gap of knowledge. Objective: The objective of this study was to examine the knowledge on the sexual health and attitude towards premarital sexual activity among the sexually abused adolescent. Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted among 88 female teenagers who were admitted to Hospital Universiti Sains Malaysia for sexual abuse. Using a self-administered validated Malay questionnaire, participants were guided to answer the question on knowledge and attitude. The attitude was categorized to a permissive and non-permissive attitude. Simple and multiple binary logistic regression were used to analyze the associated factors with the attitude. Result: The lowest percentage of correct responses included: penile discharge during ejaculation contains sperm (5.7%), pregnancy may not occur if having sexual intercourse once only (26.1%), having vaginal washing after sexual intercourse prevents pregnancies (19.3%). Forty-one (48.0%) of participants had a permissive attitude whereas forty-seven (53.4%) had a non-permissive attitude toward premarital sexual activity. Simple and multiple logistic regressions did not reveal any significant associated factors. Conclusion: The sexual health knowledge among sexually abused children was inadequate and they were at risk of permissive attitude toward premarital sexual activity. We could not identify any factors related to the permissive attitude in our study.