Ungdomars kunskap om säkert sex påverkar sexuellt risktagande, men attityderna avgör : "Det händer inte mig"

Sammanfattning: Background: Adolescents view on sexual relationships is more liberal now than ever before and sexual transmitted diseases has increased rapidly the past years. Objective: The aim of the study was to explore how adolescents perceive their knowledge about safe sex and to which extent it could influence their sexual risk-taking. Method: Qualitative content analysis based on 11 interviews with nine girls and two boys. Result: Five categories emerged which was "enough knowledge", "need for more knowledge", "there is always more to learn", "the adolescent´s needs for safer sex" and "knowledge leads to safe sex". The categories lead to one main team which was "knowledge is important but attitudes determines". Conclusion : The results show that adolescence perceives their knowledge as good enough to practice safe sex. However the adolescents sometimes feel that the sexual education in school is insufficient in many areas, as a result, they search for knowledge on their own. Our results show that it's not adolescent´s knowledge but their attitudes that is the decisive factor regarding sexual behavior. According to the theory of planned behavior it´s possible to change this behavior by influencing norms, attitudes and self-efficacy. A reformed sexual education that focus on changing attitudes by empowering the adolescents to increased self-efficacy can make it possible to influence the intention to have safer sex and the actual behavior in sexual relationships.