Apprentices' level of knowledge about sexually transmitted disease

APPRENTICES LEVEL OF KNOWLEDGE ABOUT SEXUALLY TRANSMITTED DISEASE
Selma ONCEL, Arzu AKCAN, Ozen KULAKAC, Kadriye ERAVSAR, Necati DEOGLU
Backround: Sexually Transmitted Diseases (STD) are important global health issues.
Objective: The aim of this study was to determine the apprentices’ level of knowledge about sexually transmitted disease.
Methods: In this study, 1028 male and 159 female apprentices who were attending the Apprentices’ Education were screened by completing a questionnaire which was prepared by the researchers concerning their knowledge level of sexually transmitted disease.
Results: The sample ranged in age from 12 to 28 and mean age of the participants were 17.41± 4.04 years. Of the apprentices 41.7% of them were in the personal hygiene sector (coiffeur, hairdresser etc.) for which the knowledge of sexually transmitted disease is quite important. Knowledge  about STD’s were sufficient in 57.69 of apprentices. The most reported sources of knowledge were newspapers/magazines/books, teachers, friends, health care personals and television/radio. From the results, it was understood that while 723 of the participants knew at least one STD’s name, only 182 of them reported one symptom of the STD’s correctly. Symptoms were the least known characteristic of the STD’s. Protecting themselves from STD’s was known by only a third of the students (35.0 %).  Nearly half of them (48.8 %) did not know that people who are healthy in appearance could contaminate the disease. They had tendency towards: not to live or work with a person who has STD’s in the same place, not to marry with him/her, to get treated   treatment, not to tell others his/her illness. A highly interesting result was their mentioning that they would kill themselves if they had an STD.
Conclusion: Teaching about STDs needs to be enforced and safe sexual practices need to be discussed with the apprentices.