The knowledge and opinions of freshman medical students on reproductive health

Sinan Ozalp, Prof.MD* Omur Elcioglu,Assis Prof. PhD** Ilhami Unluoglu,Prof.MD***

* Osmangazi University Faculty of Medicine Department of Gynecology and Obstetrics Eskisehir /Turkey

** Osmangazi University Faculty of Medicine Department of Medical Ethics Eskisehir /Turkey

*** Osmangazi University Faculty of Medicine Department of Family Medicine Eskisehir /Turkey

The World Health Organization categorizes the age group of 10-19 as “adolescence” and the age group of 15-24 as “youth”. Approximately 21% of Turkish population is composed of the adolescent age group. The high rate of adolescent age group in the total population results in giving priority to health problems of adolescents within general health problems of the society.

Objectives: Because of, medical students have a privileged position among university youth, the objective of this study is to find out the knowledge and opinions of freshman medical students who are expected to provide services with an integrated medical approach in the future, so as to be able to follow up the changes of knowledge throughout their medical education via further researches.

Design and Methods: The freshman medical students were asked to fill in a 52-item survey in the first month of their education and their answers were evaluated within the scope of this study.142 students replied the surveys and the rate of participation to the research was 81,1% (n=175). This is a cross-sectional study. While analyzing the data, arithmetic mean, standard deviation, frequency and percentages were used to describe the variables concerning the participants, and x2 test was used to find out whether there is a statistically meaning relation between the demographical characteristics of the participants and the variables. SPSS 10.0 program as used for this purpose.

Results and Conclusions: The average age of students is 18,01 ±3,24. 97 students (68.3%) were born in an urban area and have lived in cities for the most of their lives. 96 of the students participating in our research (67.6%) heard about the concept of reproductive health this concept was not assimilated sufficiently. 140 students (98.6%) heard about the concept of family planning and 58 students defined it right. For the students, limiting the size of families and raising healthy children are the primary objectives of family planning. The male students involved in the research mentioned that the most appropriate age of marriage for men should be a little bit older than women. The students want to have 1-2 children in the future. The students born in a rural area wish to have both female and male children more than the ones born in urban areas. The students who lived in a rural area longer than an urban area wish to have both female and male children more than the ones living longer in urban areas. In Turkey adolescent have insufficient knowledge about reproductive health. Some period of time is required for the acknowledgement and adoption of new concepts. The general opinions and thoughts and their future perspectives are influenced by the society in which they live.