Male teens need better counselling about HIV, STI

A study at Johns Hopkins Children’s Center has found that despite the national guidelines aimed at improving sexual health services for teenagers, most sexually active boys still get too little counselling about HIV and other sexually transmitted infections (STIs) from their doctors.

Researchers compilewd data from the 1995 National Survey of Adolescent Males and the 2002 National Survey of Family Growth. They found that only 26 percent of teens who reported high-risk sex, such as having sex with a prostitute or an HIV-infected person or having sex while high or drunk, said they received HIV/STI counselling at the doctor’s office in the year preceding the survey.

Twenty-one percent of all sexually active boys, regardless of risk, said they discussed HIV and other STIs with their doctors.

The researchers say their findings signal the need for better STI counselling of young male patients in order to minimize risky behaviours.