Sexual knowledge and attitudes of israeli medical students as compared to american medical students

In order to construct a Human Sexuality Course more suitable for the specific needs of Israeli medical students, a national study on their sexual knowledge and attitudes was performed using the Sex Knowledge and Attitude Test (S.K.A.T.). The results obtained were compared with a national study of American medical students. When analyzing our results according to the standard score method of the S.K.A.T., the Israeli student appeared significantly less knowledgeable in sexual matters (especially on medical- psychological and sociological items), and much more conservative than his American counterpart in most of his attitudes regarding sex (except for his views on heterosexual relations). When further examining our results according to a sample-adjusted method, the majority of our students seemed to be rather liberal. This apparent discrepancy might be explained by differences in defining "liberal" and "conservative" in our two countries (or in any other cultures where the S.K.A.T. is used), and should be carefully taken into account when deciding on the nature of future teaching programs.