Knowledge and perception of young people about sexual transmitted diseases

Running head: SEXUALLY TRANSMITTED DISEASES
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Thesis paper
Knowledge and perception of young people about sexual transmitted diseases
Student’s Name
Professor’s Name
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SEXUALLY TRANSMITTED DISEASES
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Table of Contents
ABSTRACT....................................................................................................................................3
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................4
LITERATURE REVIEW................................................................................................................6
2.1 Gonorrhea...............................................................................................................................8
2.2 Genital herpes........................................................................................................................9
2.3 Syphilis.................................................................................................................................10
2.4 HIV/AIDS............................................................................................................................12
2.5 Chlamydia............................................................................................................................14
2.6 Human papilloma virus........................................................................................................15
The aim and objective of the study............................................................................................16
Thesis questions.........................................................................................................................16
METHODOLOGY........................................................................................................................17
RESULTS......................................................................................................................................19
DISCUSSION................................................................................................................................20
STRENGTHS AND LIMITATIONS............................................................................................21
References......................................................................................................................................23
Appendix........................................................................................................................................29

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ABSTRACT
The problem of rapid spread of different sexually transmitted diseases among the youth is
a concern in many parts of the world. Health care personnel continue to do some research on
different STDs and what can be done to prevent them from spreading. A lot of attention has been
given to the research on HIV/AIDS forget the effects and the impact of other STIs to the young
people and the entire society. This study was conducted in Washington DC and Maryland to
know the amount of knowledge the young people had on different STDs. The data collected
would then be used by medical practitioners to strategize on the best methods to reach the youth
and given then information about some uncommon but very dangerous STDs.
In this paper six sexual transmitted diseases are discussed in details to give insight of
what happens when one if infected with any of the infections. Both quantitative and qualitative
methods of research were used to collect data from the participants. The questionnaires were
used to test the knowledge of individuals on STIs while the qualitative question required on to
give their opinions on different issues in regard to STDs.

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INTRODUCTION
Sexually transmitted diseases can also be abbreviated as STDs or STIs. The diseases are
transmitted by viruses, protozoa and the bacteria. Sexual intercourse is the main cause of the
diseases in many cases. Other methods of transmission include the oral sex, few cases in body
organ transplant and unscreened blood transfusion. The venereal disease is another name that can
be used when referring sexually transmitted diseases (Chesson et al 2014).
Perception can be defined as something detected by the five senses of human or a state of
conscious understanding of something. Knowledge is an awareness of a specific factor a
condition. The knowledge can as well be defined as a state of having been informed or made
aware of something. The researcher was interested to know the cause of an increase of sexually
transmitted infections among the young generation (Jones et al 2014). The statics provided by
united nations and Aids showed that about one million young people transmit STDs in each and
every year,
By the end of research, the researcher expects to know why sexually transmitted diseases are
spread at the high rate, by investigating the knowledge and perception of young people in
relation to STDs.The information collected from this research can be used by social health
organization and public health in countering the diseases. The healthy educators can as well use
the information to create awareness to young people (Alexander et al 2018).

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The data collection was done by filling of a short questionnaire in one of the clinics in
Washington DC and another in Maryland. Sexually transmitted diseases today are spreading at
the high rate because many people are getting more sexually agile especially among young
people (Carter et al 2014). The other cause is the practice of sex with more than one partner
among the married people. In the quantitative methodology, patients in one of the in clinics were
given a questionnaire with 10 simple question to test their knowledge on STIs. In qualitative
methodology, the same patients were to answer a single simple question inform of an essay on
their perception and attitudes towards STIs (Drainoni et al 2014).

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LITERATURE REVIEW
Sexually transmitted diseases are one of the major problems that have affected many
youths globally. This has been contributed to by the insufficient knowledge the young people
have about the STDs. Young adults have a common ignorance and disbelieve about the dangers
and consequences of sexually transmitted infections (Llata et al 2014). The problem comes
because these sexually transmitted infections (STIs) have comparable symptoms and that makes
them difficult to notice (Muzny et al 2014). The signs and symptoms rarely do appear to an
infected person, so it is easy to spread the disease without knowing if one is infected with the
disease. Another factor that has contributed to the spread of the diseases is the insufficient
medical institutions that offer the STIs tests. Private medical institutions are expensive and this
limits youth's interest for tests. Adequate understanding of STIs to the youths is still low in both
developing and developed countries. All other STIs create a high prevalence of contracting
HIV/AID, because of their predisposed sex organs due to damage caused by other sexually
transmitted diseases. All STIs are transmitted through either virginal, anal or oral sex. About
60% to 80% of youth who have knowledge of HIV/AIDS have inadequate knowledge about
other sexually transmitted diseases (Oster et al 2014).

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According to recent reports Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2015) the
survey, about 20 million STDs occur in the United States. More than 498 million cases of STDs
occur worldwide every year. The involved population that shown better understanding of STIs
said they have acquired knowledge about STIs through media, internet, television, brochures and
education through public awareness. Casual sex workers have been known to be the most rated
group that spread the STIs at a higher rate. These are the workers that use seductive sexy
behaviour for money (Liu et al 2015). Long distance travellers are known to engage in such
activities hence about 20% of the spread of these STIs are through casual sex activities.
Unprotected sex has remained at the top of the ways of spreading the STIs (Flagg et al 2015). In
some African countries like Nigeria, cultural and religious activities have greatly influenced the
mass education of young people about STDs. Islamic religion in Nigeria, it's a taboo talking
about sex with young people. A survey carried out in Albania in the year 2002 showed that large
percentage of men had insufficient knowledge on STIs than women (O'Leary et al 2015).
Among the religious background of the young people, the study showed that youth from Islamic
religion had poorer knowledge about STIs as compared to youth from (Christians et al 2014).
These studies showed that generally there is a lot to be done on the young generations
towards educating them about sexually transmitted diseases. Among the infections involved in
the study include; gonorrhoea, syphilis, human papillomavirus, genital herpes, chlamydia and
HIV/AIDS (Moodley et al 2015).
2.1 Gonorrhea
Gonorrhoea is a sexually transmitted disease that has been found to affect many of the youth
across the world. The causative agent of gonorrhoea is Bacterium gonorrhoea (Park et al 2015).
Many symptoms of this disease are not displayed in majority of the people who have the

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infection. Though a few symptoms appear. For instance, in women, there is vaginal discharge
and lower abdominal pain (Workowski & Bolan,2015). Men do experience pain during sexual
intercourse due to the penile urethra, pain while urinating and penis discharge. In both men and
women, one can acquire throat gonorrhoea if he/she practices oral sex with an infected person.
The symptoms of throat gonorrhoea are very rare in some cases (Llata et al 2015). The most
common symptom that may appear is a sore in the throat. About 90% of the infected people do
not show symptoms. Tiredness and bacterial allergic reaction are among the advanced symptoms
of gonorrhoea. The incubation period of gonorrhoea is 2 to 14 days and most symptoms are
experienced between 4 and 6 days from the day of infection. These symptoms may appear on the
skin as lesions, pain and swelling of joints as the disease travels through the bloodstream. This
disease can go deeper and if not treated early may develop to prostate cancer. There is re-
infection whereby somebody who is infected comes into sexual contact with another infected
person. Due to lack of outer or displayed symptoms, an infected person may infect others
repeatedly without his/her knowledge. The percentage risk of a man getting infected after having
sex with an infected woman is 20% while that of a woman getting infected after having sex with
the infected man is 60% to 80%. This percentage is prone to the young people (Bollerup et al
2016).
The diagnosis of this disease should be taken from samples of vaginal discharge, urine or
urethral fluids for screening and testing of the infection. The polymerase chain reaction (PCR) is
used to identify the specific gene of species Neisseria gonorrhoea. People who test positive for
gonorrhoea are most likely to contract other sexually transmitted diseases (STSs) such as
chlamydia syphilis and human papillomavirus (Davey et al 2016). Recent researchers have
shown that 46% to 50% of young people who have chlamydia are likely to have gonorrhoea. The