Human sexuality: a survey of the knowledge of medical students

A survey of New Zealand medical students is described in which knowledge of human sexuality is documented to vary with age, sex, marital status, participation in a human sexuality teaching programme and year of course. Whilst no group scored disastrously and all groups scored well in some areas of sexuality, most groups also demonstrated significant gaps in their knowledge. Within any large medical school it is likely that there will be student subgroups with widely different levels of knowledge and therefore different needs requiring to be met in terms of education. Knowledge of sexuality was demonstrated to increase during the Otago medical course and for this process to have been facilitated by a formal human sexuality teaching programme. Support is therefore given to the need for, and effectiveness of, such teaching programmes in medical schools.