Teenagers' sexuality in Estonia and Finland in the 1990s
Keywords:
adolescents, sexual knowledge, sexual behavior, Estonia, FinlandAbstract
The present study assessed adolescent knowledge of sexual issues and sexual behavior in Estonia and Finland. The Estonian survey was conducted among students in the final grade of comprehensive school in March 1994, with a questionnaire translated trom the Finnish KISS-92 study. The Estonian sample comprised 532 boys and 548 girls 15.0 years old on average; part of the Finnish KISS group of 1992, covering 680 boys and 687 girls 15.8 years old on average, served for comparison. Significance of difference was tested. Estonian adolescents were found to have significantly less sexual experiences than their Finnish counterparts. At the same time quite a large proportion of the Estonian adolescents were attitudinally ready to start sexual intercourse. From this point of view, it is alarming that knowledge of sexual issues was poor among Estonian adolescents: only one out of ten respondents had good and about one- half had poor knowledge of sexual issues. A good level of knowledge was five times more common among Finnish boys compared to Estonian boys. Among girls the difference was eightfold, respectively.
