Sex and Sexual Health Literacy of Vocational School Students in St. Petersburg

Russia does not have a full-fledged course that could be considered a sex education; most HIV and AIDS prevention activities are a one-hour lecture. Today it is unknown what is the level of sexual literacy among adolescents and how their knowledge is associated with real health care practices. The purpose of this study is to describe the relationship between the level of sexual literacy and self-efficacy of condom use and the safer sexual behaviour of adolescents. The date includes adolescents aged 17-21 from St. Petersburg vocational schools (1001 students, 37% girls, average age 18 years). The linear regression results show that the higher the teenager's level of sexual literacy and assessment of risks, the more likely that teenager’s self-efficacy of condom use is high. The results of the second regression, which included only sexually active adolescents (671 students), showed that high confidence in condom use was associated with safer sexual behaviour. The level of sexual literacy has not shown significant results for sexual behaviour. Overall, these findings add additional evidence of a link between sexual knowledge and self-efficacy, but not behaviour, as the Health Belief Model describes.