Sexual attitude and behavior among medical students: A single institution survey

BACKGROUND: Human behavior including sexual activity is mostly culturally bound; particularly individuals at a younger age do build their sexual knowledge through various sources like by forming intimacy with similar age group individuals and use of media or literature available for the information. Values and beliefs about sexuality are manifested in a person’s individual sexual behaviors based on family, religion and socio-cultural influence on knowledge about sexuality and sexual experiences. However, modernization may have inadvertently changed people’s attitudes and permissiveness among sexually active youths in our society. METHODOLOGY: This study adapted a cross-sectional descriptive-cum-exploratory research design conducted in an in-group of a single educational institute. A structured, pre-tested, self-administered questionnaire was used to collect the relevant information from the subjects. This study aims to receive information about the knowledge, practices and attitudes regarding sexual behavior among 340 undergraduate medical students in a medical college at Patna, Bihar. RESULTS: This study showed significant findings regarding changing attitudes of the new generation toward sex and sexual practices as 78.5% of respondents were found between the age group of 20–25 years among which 58.5% were males and 41.5% were females. The average age of sexual debut was found to be 21 years among which 97.3% of the participants were heterosexual. Gender and religion were significantly associated with few components of sexual attitudes. CONCLUSION: Sex is one of the most sensitive aspects of a human life which is not usually talked about in open space and requires a lot of privacy in thoughts and practices. There is a strong need to introduce age-appropriate sexual knowledge at school and college level to establish healthy sexual attitudes among the young generation. As medical health practitioners, it is necessary to disseminate appropriate guidance and non-biased services to the welfare of the beneficiaries shaping their sexual attitudes for responsible and safe sexual practices.