Investigation on Pre- and Post-intervention Effects of Nurse-led Sexuality Education on Knowledge of Sexual Health Between the Intervention and Control Groups of Adolescents in Selected Secondary Schools in Ogun State, Nigeria

Sexuality is an issue inherent in the lives of all human beings. Education for Sexuality takes place informally, through relationships with the environment, with the family as a model, and formally, as a pedagogical practice in Teaching. Nurse-led sexuality education interventions, particularly in schools, effectively improve adolescent knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors related to sexual health, potentially leading to reduced risky behaviors and improved overall well-being. Adolescence is a critical developmental period during which major biological as well as psychological take place. Therefore, this study seeks to investigate the pre and post-intervention effects of nurse-led sexuality education among adolescence in selected secondary schools across three local governments in Ogun State. This study adopted quasi-experimental design of pre and post-intervention type and was conducted among adolescents (12 to 18 years) attending senior secondary schools in Ogun State, Nigeria. A sample size 422 respondents were selected using multi-stage sampling techniques. All respondents were subjected to constructive nurse-led intervention, devoid of bias before pre-interventional assessment, using structural questionnaire. The respondents were trained 1 hour per module per week which took six weeks (six modules) while post interventional assessment was also conducted twelve (12) weeks after the intervention phase using the same instrument. Data collected from the selected respondents were analyzed using IBM SPSS software version 28, Frequency and percentages were calculated for categorical variables, while mean and standard deviation was calculated for continuous variables. The findings from this study indicate a significant improvement in adolescents’ sexual health knowledge following the nurse-led sexuality education intervention. Prior to the intervention, 61.0% of participants demonstrated low knowledge of sexual health, while only 6.0% had high knowledge. However, after the intervention, the proportion of adolescents with low knowledge drastically decreased to 16.0%, while those with high knowledge increased significantly to 64.5%. This shift suggests that structured educational interventions can play a pivotal role in enhancing adolescents’ understanding of sexual health concepts. The chi-square analysis (χ² = 11.021, p = 0.0492) further confirms that this improvement was statistically significant. The study concluded that, there was a substantial increase in knowledge levels, with the proportion of adolescents with low knowledge decreasing from 61.0% to 16.0%, while those with high knowledge increased from 6.0% to 64.5%.