Many teenagers consider their parents a key resource for accurate information about sex, a new study suggests.

Parental guidance was cited by 63 per cent of the 1,171 teens surveyed by the Canadian Association for Health Information. Teenagers in the study, which was completed in October, also considered their friends and school as key sources.

"One of the most surprising results of the study was how parents underestimate their importance and the role teens expect them to play when it comes to their sexuality and sexual health," said Dr. Miriam Kaufman, spokesperson for the association.

Dr. Miriam Kaufman
Dr. Miriam Kaufman

The survey, which sought to determine if teenagers need more information on sex and how best to get it to them, questioned 14- to 17-year-olds, as well as mothers of teens in the age group. It supported trends already familiar to doctors and health workers.

Close to one-third of teens surveyed were sexually active. Of those, more than two-thirds were engaging in oral sex, although the survey also suggested many teens don't consider that to be sex.




Dr. Francesca Baltzer, who runs the teen medicine program at Montreal Children's Hospital, says the survey shows teens crave information, and they look to their parents for it.

"Somehow we're at the point where parents give up. They say, 'I have a teenager now, I can't talk to them, it's useless,' and then they don't. And it's not true."

Liz Giddens of Toronto is determined her 16-year-old daughter will get her information about sex from her mother, but the girl resists whenever she brings up the subject.

"She always looks like she'd rather be in another room, uncomfortable, squirmy," said Giddens.

Many parents may be worried for nothing, suggests the survey, with mothers overestimating by 50 per cent the number of teenagers engaged in sexual activity.

Baltzer says many parents are just as misinformed as their kids. Both believe toilet seats are a major source of sexual disease, she said.

Other survey results include:

  • Ninety per cent of teens surveyed believed they were knowledgeable about sex
  • One in five knew gonorrhea or syphilis was transmitted by oral sex.
  • Nineteen per cent had heard of HPV, or human papilloma virus, which causes genital warts and is linked to cervical cancer.
  • Fifty-six per cent of sexually active teen girls had not had a Pap test in three years.

Conducted by Ipsos-Reid, the survey is considered accurate to within plus or minus 2.9 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.