Randomized Trial Finds Teen Abstinence Ed Effective
An
article in the January, 2005 Journal of Adolescent Health reports a
rigorous 4 year study, which found that randomly assigned female
students exposed to an abstinence-centered program in a Chilean high
school had five times lower pregnancy rates than the control group of
female students, which received no intervention. The abstract follows.
Adolescent
pregnancy prevention: an abstinence-centered randomized controlled
intervention in a Chilean public high school Carlos Cabezon, M.D.,
Ph.D. a,*, Pilar Vigil, M.D., Ph.D.b, Ivan Rojasc, M. Eugenia Leivad,
Rosa Riquelme e, Waldo Arandaf, and Carlos Garcia, M.D.ctober 17, 2003
Abstract
Purpose: To evaluate the efficacy of an
abstinence-centered sex education program in adolescent pregnancy
prevention, the TeenSTAR Program was applied in a high school in
Santiago, Chile. Methods: A total of 1259 girls from a Santiago high
school were divided into three cohorts depending on the year they
started high school: the 1996 cohort of 425 students, which received no
intervention; the 1997 cohort, in which 210 students received an
intervention and 213 (control group) did not; and the 1998 cohort, in
which 328 students received an intervention and 83 (control group) did
not. Students were randomly assigned to control and intervention groups
in these cohorts, before starting with the program. We conducted a
prospective, randomized study using the application of the TeenSTAR sex
education program during the first year of high school to the
intervention groups in the 1997 and 1998 cohorts. All cohorts were
followed up for 4 years; pregnancy rates were recorded and subsequently
contrasted in the intervention and control groups. Pregnancy rates were
measured and Risk Ratio with 95% confidence interval were calculated
for intervention and control groups in each cohort.
Results: Pregnancy rates for the intervention and control groups in the 1997
cohort were 3.3% and 18.9%, respectively (RR: 0.176, CI: 0.076-0.408).
Pregnancy rates for the intervention and control groups in the 1998
cohort were 4.4% and 22.6%, respectively (RR 0.195, CI: 0.099-0.384).
Conclusions: The abstinence-centered TeenSTAR sex education intervention was
effective in the prevention of unintended adolescent pregnancy. Source:
Journal of Adolescent Health 36 (2005) 64-69.
