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Adolescent readers' responses to the booklet on sex
1Department of Primary Health Care, University of Helsinki, Finland.
Purpose:
To investigate the reception and the readers' reactions to a booklet about sex, which is mailed annually to all 16-year old Finnish adolescents.
Methods:
Eight hundred youngsters were randomly selected to the study. A questionnaire was sent to them six weeks after the mailing of the booklet, The Sextiin. After three rounds, a response rate of 65% (N = 521) was achieved.
Results:
The booklet reached 97% of the respondents, of whom 72% read all of it. The respondents' attitudes towards and reactions to the Sextiin were mainly positive. They reacted least positively to the articles on homosexuality and masturbation. Twelve percent of the respondents indicated that they opened the condom package that was attached to the Sextiin.
Conclusions:
The study shows that the campaign reached its target group well. As the adolescents' reactions to the Sextiin proved to be mainly positive, a claim for further use of the mass media for educational purposes is justified.