Reduction in sexual risk behaviors among college students following a comprehensive health education intervention.

Sexually active college students are at risk of contracting sexually transmitted diseases, including HIV infection. As a result, health education initiatives to prevent these infections are commonplace, but few controlled research studies have evaluated behavioral changes as a result of on-campus sex education. In a nonrandomized control trial, sexual risk behaviors of 341 students who had received a comprehensive health education intervention in a first-year seminar were compared with 227 students who were not enrolled in the seminar. The seminar curriculum included an intervention addressing facts about sexually transmitted diseases, safer sex, values, decision making, and assertiveness skills. Sexual abstinence (no sexual intercourse), number of sexual partners, consistent condom use, and methods of contraception were assessed at baseline and after 3 months. Compared with students who had not received the intervention, men in the seminar reported increased sexual abstinence but no change in consistent condom use; the women in the intervention group reported no change in sexual abstinence but an increase in consistent condom use. Women who had not received the intervention reported never using a condom more frequently than women who had received the intervention. The health education intervention on a college campus was associated with short-term reduction in sexual risk behaviors, but the reduction varied according to the students' gender.