Sex education in Poland – a cross-sectional study evaluating over twenty thousand polish women’s knowledge of reproductive health issues and contraceptive methods

BACKGROUND: Reproductive health is a part of a comprehensive definition of complete physical, mental and social well-being. Sex education is an important aspect of public health. Ignorance, due to the lack of sex education leads to risky sexual behaviors. Methods: Our cross-sectional study was aimed at investigating a representative group of Polish women’s knowledge about the physiology of the menstrual cycle, contraceptive methods, infertility and cervical cancer prevention. The data were collected by face-to-face interviews and an anonymous electronic questionnaire. RESULTS: The study group involved 20,002 respondents. Most of the women were of reproductive age (mean 27.7), parous (60.8%), of higher education (71%) and living in large cities (> 500 k citizens, 36.8%). 62.2% of the women gave correct answers to at least 5 of 7 questions concerning the physiology of the menstrual cycle. Three factors had a significant influence on the number of correct answers: higher education (p = 0.0001), more frequent gynecological appointments (p = 0.0001) and living in a larger city (p = 0.002). Women of higher education level had more often used some form of contraceptive method previously (87% vs. 78.4%, p = 0.001), recommended natural family planning methods to their peers (18.4% vs. 15%, p = 0.001) and regularly attended gynecological appointments (85.7% vs. 78.8%, p = 0.001) when compared with those women with lower educational levels. The three most effective contraceptive methods identified by respondents were: oral contraceptives (71.1% answers), intrauterine devices (50.2%) and parenteral hormonal contraceptives (30.4%). The effectiveness of natural family planning was more often emphasized by women who had never used any contraceptives before (20.1% vs 6.7%). Most of the participants (80.8%) believed that in-vitro fertilization is an effective infertility treatment and should be reimbursed in Poland. Also, 95.2% of the respondents reported that they had undergone a Papanicolaou test within the past 3 years, but only 3% of these women were aware of all the risk factors for cervical cancer mentioned in our survey. CONCLUSIONS: It is very important to improve comprehensive reproductive health education in Poland, especially among women of lower educational levels and living in small centers. In future, educational programs and gynecologists should focus on implementing and improving these aforementioned issues. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (10.1186/s12889-019-7046-0) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.