Students Awareness About Puberty Changes and Their Relationship with Attitude Towards Social Harm

Introduction: The aim of this research was to determine the level of male students awareness about puberty changes and their relationship  with the attitude towards social harm.   Methods: In this research, a descriptive/correlational method was used. The statistical population of this research was lower secondary school boy students, from whom, one hundred fifty-two of them were selected by stratified sampling method. Awareness about puberty changes measured by a researcher-made questionnaire and attitude toward social harm by Aghayee and Timur Tasch questionnaire. The validity and reliability of these two questionnaires were approved by the researchers. The reliability coefficient of the awareness about the puberty changes and the attitude towards social harm questionnaires were 0.85 and 0.80 respectively. T-test, analysis of variance, Chi-square and Pearson correlation coefficient were used to analyze the data. Results: There was a significant difference between students’ awareness based on age and job of their parents, father’s literacy, family economic status and type of life. The results of the Pearson correlation coefficient showed that all subscales of awareness about puberty changes have a significant correlation with social harm attitudes. That means increasing awareness about puberty changes decreases their attitude toward social harms. Conclusions: According to the results of this study because students’ awareness about puberty changes improves the physical health of adolescents, and prevents future social harm; receiving adequate training about these changes is a must.