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Awareness, Knowledge and Risky Behaviors of Sexually Transmitted Diseases among Young People in Greece

Sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) affect mainly young individuals and cause health, social, and economic problems worldwide. The present study used a web questionnaire to assess the awareness, knowledge, sexual behaviors, and common practices regarding STDs in young Greek adults. The 1833 individ...

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Autores principales: Voyiatzaki, Chrysa, Venetikou, Maria S., Papageorgiou, Effie, Anthouli-Anagnostopoulou, Fragiski, Simitzis, Panagiotis, Chaniotis, Dimitrios I., Adamopoulou, Maria
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8508576/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34639324
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph181910022
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author Voyiatzaki, Chrysa
Venetikou, Maria S.
Papageorgiou, Effie
Anthouli-Anagnostopoulou, Fragiski
Simitzis, Panagiotis
Chaniotis, Dimitrios I.
Adamopoulou, Maria
author_facet Voyiatzaki, Chrysa
Venetikou, Maria S.
Papageorgiou, Effie
Anthouli-Anagnostopoulou, Fragiski
Simitzis, Panagiotis
Chaniotis, Dimitrios I.
Adamopoulou, Maria
author_sort Voyiatzaki, Chrysa
collection PubMed
description Sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) affect mainly young individuals and cause health, social, and economic problems worldwide. The present study used a web questionnaire to assess the awareness, knowledge, sexual behaviors, and common practices regarding STDs in young Greek adults. The 1833 individuals, aged 18–30 years, who responded to the study seem to be particularly knowledgeable regarding STDs such as AIDS (97.7%), warts (97%), Chlamydia (92.2%), genital herpes (89.9%), syphilis (81.9%), and gonorrhea (72.1%), whereas lower percentages were noted for trichomoniasis (39.3%), Molluscum contagiosum (12.9%), mycoplasmosis (11.6%), and amoebiasis (7.4%). Regarding oral STD transmission, participants replied correctly for genital herpes (45%), warts (35.8%), and AIDS (HIV; 33.8%), whereas 30.2% were unfamiliar with oral sexual transmission. Of the participants, 52% were not aware that STDs might cause infertility. Only 40.4% of the respondents reported always using condoms during sexual intercourse, and 48.6% had never been tested for STDs. The majority of the young population (55%) presented a moderate knowledge STD score (41–60%) and was associated with demographic parameters such as age, gender, sexual preference, number of sexual partners, and residence (p < 0.05). These findings provide important information regarding the prevention of STDs and highlight the significance of developing more effective sex education programs for young people in Greece.
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spelling pubmed-85085762021-10-13 Awareness, Knowledge and Risky Behaviors of Sexually Transmitted Diseases among Young People in Greece Voyiatzaki, Chrysa Venetikou, Maria S. Papageorgiou, Effie Anthouli-Anagnostopoulou, Fragiski Simitzis, Panagiotis Chaniotis, Dimitrios I. Adamopoulou, Maria Int J Environ Res Public Health Article Sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) affect mainly young individuals and cause health, social, and economic problems worldwide. The present study used a web questionnaire to assess the awareness, knowledge, sexual behaviors, and common practices regarding STDs in young Greek adults. The 1833 individuals, aged 18–30 years, who responded to the study seem to be particularly knowledgeable regarding STDs such as AIDS (97.7%), warts (97%), Chlamydia (92.2%), genital herpes (89.9%), syphilis (81.9%), and gonorrhea (72.1%), whereas lower percentages were noted for trichomoniasis (39.3%), Molluscum contagiosum (12.9%), mycoplasmosis (11.6%), and amoebiasis (7.4%). Regarding oral STD transmission, participants replied correctly for genital herpes (45%), warts (35.8%), and AIDS (HIV; 33.8%), whereas 30.2% were unfamiliar with oral sexual transmission. Of the participants, 52% were not aware that STDs might cause infertility. Only 40.4% of the respondents reported always using condoms during sexual intercourse, and 48.6% had never been tested for STDs. The majority of the young population (55%) presented a moderate knowledge STD score (41–60%) and was associated with demographic parameters such as age, gender, sexual preference, number of sexual partners, and residence (p < 0.05). These findings provide important information regarding the prevention of STDs and highlight the significance of developing more effective sex education programs for young people in Greece. MDPI 2021-09-23 /pmc/articles/PMC8508576/ /pubmed/34639324 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph181910022 Text en © 2021 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Voyiatzaki, Chrysa
Venetikou, Maria S.
Papageorgiou, Effie
Anthouli-Anagnostopoulou, Fragiski
Simitzis, Panagiotis
Chaniotis, Dimitrios I.
Adamopoulou, Maria
Awareness, Knowledge and Risky Behaviors of Sexually Transmitted Diseases among Young People in Greece
title Awareness, Knowledge and Risky Behaviors of Sexually Transmitted Diseases among Young People in Greece
title_full Awareness, Knowledge and Risky Behaviors of Sexually Transmitted Diseases among Young People in Greece
title_fullStr Awareness, Knowledge and Risky Behaviors of Sexually Transmitted Diseases among Young People in Greece
title_full_unstemmed Awareness, Knowledge and Risky Behaviors of Sexually Transmitted Diseases among Young People in Greece
title_short Awareness, Knowledge and Risky Behaviors of Sexually Transmitted Diseases among Young People in Greece
title_sort awareness, knowledge and risky behaviors of sexually transmitted diseases among young people in greece
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8508576/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34639324
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph181910022
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