Reproductive health promotion through traditional art media reduced premarital sex intention among adolescent population in Gianyar, Bali

Background: Sex education in adolescents is still considered taboo to be discussed in the community. Traditional arts as communicative and informative socialization media contain meaningful messages, it is expected that teenagers get a good understanding of reproductive health so that they become healthy and quality adolescents. Therefore, this study aimed to evaluate reproductive health promotion through traditional arts media on adolescent knowledge, attitudes and sexual intentions in Gianyar, Bali. Methods: A quantitative study with a quasi-experimental design was conducted with nonequivalent (pretest and posttest) control group. Data on premarital sex knowledge, attitudes and intentions were collected before and after staging traditional arts in the intervention group (75 adolescents). Data were collected from self-filled questionnaires. and analyzed using STATA (version 12.0). Data analysis was conducted using Wilcoxon rank test and Wilcoxon rank-sum. Results: The results showed an overall significant improvement in the knowledge and attitudes of adolescents about premarital sex and a decrease intention toward premarital sex after intervention (p value 0.00). The improvement in knowledge, premarital sex attitudes and intentions was more pronounced in the intervention group compared to control group. The control group that was not given an intervention showed a higher average value of premarital sex intention. Conclusion: Reproductive health promotion program using traditional arts media was able to significantly reduce premarital sex intentions among teenagers