Impact of Teaching Sexual Health Education on Medical Students

Abstract

Background and Objectives: Physician discomfort, embarrassment, and perceived lack of time and/or training all play a role in preventing physicians from discussing sexual health with patients. Past research shows this discomfort begins in medical school. We aimed to determine whether teaching sexual health education increases medical students’ self-efficacy in discussing sexual health topics with adolescents. Methods: We emailed a retrospective pre/postsurvey to all medical students who taught sexual health education in a local middle school through Sex Ed by Brown Med (N=61). Results: Participation in Sex Ed by Brown Med improves self-efficacy in discussing nine sexual health topics and in performing nine advanced interviewing skills relevant to sexual health in a retrospective analysis using self-reported data. Conclusions: Programs similar to Sex Ed by Brown Med may be useful in improving medical students’ ability to adequately care for their patients’ sexual health by making future clinicians more comfortable when discussing the important topic of sexuality, and concurrently providing evidence-based comprehensive sexual health education to middle school students. Further research is needed to determine the impact of our program (and similar programs) before disseminating this model of sexual education.