Paper
Thursday, 20 July 2006
This presentation is part of : Issues in Child and Adolescent Health
Sexual Attitudes of Higher Education Students: Influence of Individual and Family Factors
Maria Teresa Antunes, PhD, Health Sciences Research Unit: Nursing Domain, Nursing School Dr. Ângelo da Fonseca, Coimbra, Portugal
Learning Objective #1: know the sexual attitudes of Portuguese higher education students.
Learning Objective #2: identify some differences in the sexual attitudes of male and female students.
Aim: to identify prenuptial sexual attitudes of higher education students and to analyse the influence of individual variables on those attitudes.
The sample consisted of 960 students, 331 male and 629 female. The instruments were: “Hendrick & Hendrick Sexual Attitude Scale”(EAS) with four subscales: Permissiveness (PER), Instrumentality (INS), Communion (COM), and Sexual Practices, (PRA), and ”Eysenck Personal Inventory”(EPI).
The results showed significant differences between genders in all EAS dimensions, with women agreeing with attitudes concerning birth control and sexual education, and men showing agreement with occasional, unattached sex and utilitary sex, which leads to the permanency of the double sexual standard.
As far as age is concerned, significant correlations with PER, INS and PRA were registered, with older students being much more in agreement with occasional, unattached sex, utilitary sex and birth control.
There are more sexually uninitiated girls than boys and the first sexual relation comes earlier in boys than in girls.
Better informed students are much more in agreement with sex as a shared experience and show more sexual responsibility.
Sexual attitudes of students who already had sexual relations, who initiated their sexual life before 17, differ considerably from the attitudes of the remainder.
Statistically significant differences were registered between students with and students without a boyfriend/girlfriend, the former showing sexual attitudes of “communion/affective involvement” and the later showing attitudes of “permissiveness”, “instrumentality” and “sexual practices”.
In both genders, the more extrovert students showed greater sexual permissiveness and a more idealistic vision of sexuality, while predominantly neurotic students were more oriented towards obtaining physical pleasure.
Conclusion and implications: from the results, we underline the difference in students’ sexual attitudes and behaviours according to gender. These results allow sustaining health education programs on safe sexual behaviours to adolescents and young adults.
 

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