A Comparative Study on the Differences in Knowledge, Attitude, and Behavior Regarding Sexual and Reproductive Health (SRH) among High School Adolescents in Kendari City, Indonesia

Abstract

Background: Globalization has facilitated the rapid and unhindered growth of communication processes and information dissemination. This phenomenon has resulted in accelerated changes in behavior among adolescents, particularly regarding sexual behavior. As a consequence, sexual and reproductive health (SRH) problems have become an important issue for adolescents in Indonesia. Therefore, the government needs to pay special attention to the needs of adolescents, considering that the population at this age is very large compared to people in other groups. Objective: This study aims to compare differences in knowledge, attitude, and behavior among adolescents about SRH in the control and intervention groups. Methods: A true experimental design was used with two groups consisting of the control and intervention groups. The control group in this study was not given intervention, while the case group received targeted actions. Results: Based on the Wilcoxon sign rank test for knowledge and attitude variables in the control group, the Asymptotic Significance (asymp. sig.) (2-tailed) value was 0.029, while that of behavior was 0.000. For the intervention group, all variables had an Asymp. Sig (2-tailed) value of 0.000. Conclusion: Knowledge, attitude, and behavior of school adolescents showed significant differences after being given intervention about SRH.