Correlates of STI testing among vocational school students in the Netherlands

BMC Public Health

Table 1 Characteristics of vocational school students with sexual experience according to gender

	N = 501	%	Boys N = 281	%	Girls N = 220	%
Age - mean (SD)range	18.3 (2.1) 16-25		18.1 (1.7)		18.6 (2.4)
Religion
None	208	41.5	116	41.3	92	41.8
Christian	175	34.9	82	29.2	93	42.3
Muslim	87	17.4	64	22.8	23	10.5
Hindu	26	5.2	16	5.7	10	4.5
Other	5	1.0	3	1.1	2	0.9
Level of education¹
1+2	265	52.9	144	51.0	121	55.0
3+4	236	47.1	137	49.0	99	45.0
Program
Health	105	21.0	15	5.3	90	40.9
Technical studies	103	20.6	100	35.6	3	1.4
Economics	92	18.4	35	12.5	57	25.9
Sports	79	15.8	61	21.7	18	8.2
ICT ²	68	13.6	65	23.1	3	1.4
Welfare	54	10.8	5	1.8	49	22.3
Ethnic background ³
Dutch	190	37.9	109	38.8	81	36.8
Surinamese	80	16.0	41	14.6	39	17.7
Antillean	61	12.2	25	8.9	36	16.4
Turkish	52	10.4	40	14.2	12	5.5
Cape Verdean	28	5.6	7	2.5	21	9.5
Moroccan	23	4.6	19	6.8	4	1.8
Other 'Western'	28	5.6	15	5.3	13	5.9
Other 'non-Western'	39	7.8	25	8.9	14	6.4

¹ The Dutch vocational school system has 4 levels of education, 1 is the lowest while 4 is the highest. Level 2 or more is required to qualify for a skilled job
²ICT = Information and Communication Technology
³Based on the definition of Statistics Netherlands: a person whose parents were both born in the Netherlands is classified as ethnic Dutch, a person of whom at least one parent was born abroad is classified with a non-Dutch ethnic background.

ISSN: 1471-2458