STIs

There are times when we pretend that no news is good news. That is not always the case. Parents rarely speak to their teenage children about sexually transmitted infections (STIs). The result is that there is often not enough knowledge to prevent them.

Adolescents only make up about 13 percent of the population. However, that same group is responsible for over half of all new STI’s. If you do the math, that means that they are four times more likely to get infected as would be expected (4 times 13 = 52).

Often parents are in denial about whether their child is sexually active. In the general population, 22 percent of 15 year olds are sexually active. That is a little more than one out of every five. At age 18 that number goes up to 65 percent. That is more than half.

The list of STI’s includes gonorrhea, syphilis, Chlamydia, Trichomonas and human papilloma virus (HPV). 

We have a vaccine for HPV. So there is an easy way to prevent this viral infection. However, only 61.4 percent of teens are up to date on this vaccine. What is more concerning is that HPV causes cervical cancer in women. It is, therefore, a vaccine to prevent that as well. 

There are many factors responsible for this high level of infection in this group. One of those is immature cervical mucous makes younger women more susceptible. 

Another factor is that they do not often seek treatment even when there are symptoms. Some of this is related to embarrassment about telling someone. Some of it is related to difficulty getting to medical care. Some of it is related to the fact that they may not want the bill to show up on their parents’ health insurance statement. The result is that they are more likely to infect others while waiting for treatment.

A third factor is that adolescents are more likely to engage in risky behaviors. They may have more partners. They may not use protection. About 19 percent use alcohol or drugs beforehand.

The best protection is proper use of condoms. This is more likely to occur early on in a relationship. During first sexual encounter, 77 percent of females and 92 percent of males used some kind of protection. Most of the time it was a condom. 

However, as other contraception methods are later adopted, condoms, which protect against STIs, are less used. For example, only 37 percent of women on oral contraceptives are likely to protect with a condom. For those women who take the long acting injections the number is even lower at 16 percent.

STIs are sometimes the forgotten part of sex education. It is often a topic that parents feel uncomfortable discussing. The result is that there is not much discussion about it. This is not one of those instances where no news is good news.