Sex education may get adolescents to delay sex

After participating in a two-week sexual education program designed and implemented by an academic medical center, more middle-school students said they would hold off on having sex for the first time, Texas researchers report.

"Involvement by the medical profession can assure medically correct content, appropriate research outcomes, and enhanced quality of medical information in this important area of adolescent health," Dr. Patricia J. Sulak of the Texas A&M University System Health Science Center College of Medicine in Temple and colleagues note in a report.

School officials in Temple had approached health care professionals at the medical school for assistance in developing a sex education program for sixth-, seventh- and eighth-graders. Parents and school officials wanted to emphasize postponing sexual activity, so the program focused on consequences of teen sex, as well as "skill building, character building, and refusal skills," Sulak and her team point out in the American Journal of Obstetrics & Gynecology. Students who were considering having sex were "encouraged" to meet with a health care professional.

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