Sexual activity, knowledge, and attitudes among North Carolina adolescents, 2002

              State Center for Health Statistics 7 SCHS Study No. 145
Sexually Transmitted Diseases ( Table 6)
Adolescents were presented with several true/ false
statements to assess their level of knowledge about
sexually transmitted diseases. Only 3.7 percent of
the adolescents incorrectly agreed with the state-ment,
“ Sexually transmitted infections ( STDs) usu-ally
go away on their own.” Thirteen percent of the
adolescents incorrectly agreed with the statement,
“ Genital herpes can be cured with an antibiotic.”
Approximately three- quarters ( 76%) of adolescents
correctly agreed that it is possible to have more than
one STD at a time. Almost 20 percent of the ado-lescents
mistakenly agreed with the statement, “ You
can’t get AIDS from someone who has only had sex
a few times.”
Level of knowledge about STDs varies little by gen-der.
However, there were noticeable differences
among middle and high school students. High
school students had a higher percentage of correct
responses for each item. Even so, high school stu-dents
did not score very much higher than middle
school students on two of the four items.
Knowledge of sexually transmitted diseases also
varied by racial group and GPA. African Americans
had the highest percentages of incorrect responses
on three of four items. Latinos had the lowest per-centage
of correct responses when presented with
the statement, “ It is possible to have more than one
sexually transmitted infection at a time.” For most
items, adolescents with the lowest GPAs had the
least knowledge about STDs.
Table 6: Percentage Responding “ True” to Statements about Sexually Transmitted Diseases
Among Demographic Groups
Overall Gender School Race/ Ethnicity GPA
Sexually Total %
Transmitted Diseases Respondents “ True” Boys Girls Middle High White Af. Am. Latino Other Low Med. High
Sexually transmitted
infections ( STDs)
usually go away on
their own. 2,947 3.7 4.2 3.3 5.1 2.5 2.4 6.8 2.2* 3.4* 2.8* 4.2 2.0*
Genital herpes can
be cured with an
antibiotic. 2,534 13.1 14.3 12.0 15.1 11.3 9.8 20.9 13.8 8.0* 13.9 13.4 9.0
It is possible to have
more than one
sexually transmitted
infection ( STD) at
one time. 2,942 76.0 76.7 75.6 67.3 84.4 82.8 72.8 58.8 67.0 70.2 78.6 83.5
You can’t get AIDS
from someone who
has only had sex a
few times. 2,527 19.8 21.1 18.2 20.5 19.1 17.3 24.6 22.9 17.5 22.4 20.3 17.2
* Percentage is based on a numerator less than 20.