Impact/Interest of a Collective Prevention Intervention in Sexual and Emotional Health

With the average age at first sexual intercourse in France being 17.6 for girls and 17.2 for boys, according to the 2010 health barometer, sexuality education and prevention seem essential at this age, and upstream.

An Australian qualitative study of young men aged 18 to 24 revealed that the main obstacles to discussing sexual health in general practice included the possibility of embarrassment and the fact that the subject was private. Most said they would only talk to their doctor about a sexual problem if it was very important or urgent: if not, they would prefer to wait for the doctor to initiate the subject.

Sexual health prevention initiatives are therefore essential outside the general practitioner's office, and have been shown to be effective in high schools. This is why the PSLA de la Grâce de Dieu has initiated sexual and emotional health prevention initiatives for students at a high school in Caen.

It therefore seemed interesting to assess these students' knowledge of sexual and emotional health before the PSLA's intervention in the amphitheatre with the students, and then after the intervention, in order to find out whether this large-scale prevention action had an impact on these students' knowledge, in the short and medium term.

Inclusion criteria

• school students in the 2023-2024 school year

Exclusion criteria

• A newsletter was sent to the school's head teachers, the students' parents and the students themselves, informing them of the possible use of the data for research purposes, and the possibility of objecting. The principal teachers provided information on the non-obligation to respond during the distribution of the questionnaires. Students who did not respond to the questionnaire were therefore not included.