Changes in high school students' perception of sexual education based on preconception care

This study examined the effect of sexual education, incorporating preconception care, through a text mining analysis. Between November 2018 and October 2019, we performed a cross-sectional study of 502 high school students in Japan. These two high schools had requested sexual education from midwives associated with Shiga University of Medical Science. The midwives conducted one 60–90-min presentation on sexual education at each school. After the intervention, an anonymous self-administered, paper-based questionnaire survey was administered to the students. Correspondence and cluster analyses were then performed using text mining software. After receiving sexual education taught by midwives, 50.1% of respondents answered that their sexual awareness and thoughts had ‘changed’ or ‘changed somewhat’. It became clear that students who felt that they had changed after taking sexual education also felt that it was important to think seriously about various things such as dating violence, sex, and life. On the other hand, among the students who answered that they did not experience any change in their sexual awareness and thinking, it became clear that this was owing to the content of the sexual education received at junior high school being similar to the current content (p < 0.05). The results of the correspondence and cluster analyses indicate that sexual education that includes instruction on preconception care can help raise students’ awareness, helping avoid unexpected pregnancies, and could possibly contribute to better reproductive health for both men and women (p < 0.05). The findings suggest that teaching preconception care is an important midwifery activity that will help improve the health of the next generation, including supporting the World Health Organization’s major goals of reducing perinatal and infant mortality rates.

Yumiko Tateoka, Fuyuki Itani