On May 14, was held at the University of Jaén the act of defense of the doctoral thesis “Construction and validation of the scale Sexuality and Contraceptive Knowledge Instrument. Level of knowledge about sexuality and contraceptive methods and attitudes towards the use of contraceptive methods among university youth” by Mr. Sebastián Sanz Martos supervised by Dr. Carmen Álvarez Nieto and Dr. Isabel M. López Medina.
The objective of this thesis was to elaborate and establish the psychometric properties of a scale to measure knowledge about sexuality and contraceptive methods, and to know the level of knowledge about sexuality and contraceptive methods in university youth and attitudes towards the use of contraceptive methods in university youth. For this purpose, the Sexuality and Contraceptive Knowledge-Instrument scale was validated using the item response theory and the Rasch model, and a cross-sectional descriptive study was conducted with young university students to determine the level of knowledge about sexuality and contraceptive methods and attitudes toward the use of contraceptive methods.
The research was developed in different phases. Thus, the first version of the scale was made up of 29 items, obtaining good values for the validity of content; after its administration to a sample of 387 young students of the Degree in Nursing and Degree in Law, a final version of 15 items was obtained with adequate psychometric properties: reliability and validity.
The results shown that the Sexuality and Contraceptive Knowledge-Instrument scale is a reliable and valid instrument for measuring the level of knowledge about sexuality and contraceptive methods among young university students.
