Assessment on the knowledge of sexual transmitted diseases among young adults in Kuala Lumpur

This study explores on the knowledge of sexually transmitted disease among young adults in Kuala Lumpur. This is because the rates of sexually transmitted diseases are not what the society would expect. According to Kenrad & Villiams in their book Infectious Diseases Epidemiology: Theory and Practice it is stated that in United States 12 to 15 million of new cases of STD occur annually, primarily affecting adolescents and young adults. Thus, the purpose of this study is to determine whether the young adults in Kuala Lumpur are aware of themselves having a sexually transmitted disease or awareness on STD itself This study was also being done to verify the amount of accurate knowledge among young adults towards sexually transmitted diseases. A part from that this study was being done to assess people on perceived risk and knowledge of STD. A set of questionnaire was distributed randomly among 160 young adults in Kuala Lumpur ages from 16 to 25 years old. The research instrument was divided into four sections consisting of participants' demographic, Likert scale which rated how likely the participant think they are at risk of getting infected with certain STDs when they have unprotected sex, yes-no question on participant's opinion of STD whether they are curable or non curable, and a list of seventeen true-false statements to measure the participants knowledge on STDs. From the study, it is about 82.5% of respondents have an idea that HIV is the most infectious STD if they practice unprotected sex followed by syphilis, genital herpes, gonorrhoea, genital warts, Chlamydia and trichomoniasis. The knowledge level of participants about STDs was found by having the respondents to answer seventeen true-false statement. The number of correct answers varied from 10 to 14 answers correct, with no one answers all correctly. It is concluded that the knowledge of sexually transmitted diseases is still low but most of the participants are aware of HIV rather than any other type of STDs .