['How Much Sex do Medical Studies Need?' - A Survey of the Knowledge and Interest in Sexual Medicine of Medical Students.]

Background: Because of the increasing need for medical care of problems concerning human sexuality, the International Society for Sexual Medicine (ISSM) in 2010 suggested to include sexual medicine in the current curricula of medical studies. Based on the ISSM's suggestions sexual medicine should be taught on a multidisciplinary basis throughout the whole study process. Furthermore, health care providers have repeatedly indicated that they have lacking knowledge concerning sexual medicine and patients have criticized that their health care providers only infrequently address their sexuality.
Methods: 404 medical students from 2 German university medical centers answered an online questionnaire assessing the quality of sexual medicine education. The students were asked about their interest in and their knowledge about different issues concerning human sexuality in the following 4 domains: Sexual development, Sexual behavior, Sexual physiology and psychology, Sexual medicine and therapy of sexual disorders.
Results: The great majority of students were interested in education about sexual medicine within medical studies, whereby most students were of the opinion that sexual medicine should be included in the already existing subjects. Furthermore, students mostly evaluated the current quality of sexual medicine education as insufficient and more than half of the students thought that they do not have enough knowledge about human sexuality for their future profession as medical health care providers. On average the students correctly answered 50% of the knowledge questions, however they showed some knowledge gaps especially in the domains of sexual development and sexual physiology and psychology. Discussion: The results of the present study suggest that medical students have lacking knowledge concerning important parts of human sexuality but at the same time express great interest in the field. Therefore, in Germany more structured educational programs in sexual medicine should be developed taking the suggestion of the ISSM into account.
Conclusion: Besides medical education about pathological sexuality future educational efforts should also address healthy sexuality and its sociocultural meaning more frequently. Thereby, the students' wishes would be met and moreover, health care providers of all fields would be enabled to provide an unbiased, holistic and sensitive treatment of sexual problems. © Georg Thieme Verlag KG Stuttgart · New York.