Blind adolescents

Abstract

Introduction: Due to the transformations that occurred in adolescence, the vagueness that accompanies it and the visual impairment, justifies a study on the experience of sexuality in this population cluster. Objectives: To identify the perceptions of visually impaired adolescents about their sexuality. Methods: Exploratory qualitative study. Five (5) adolescents from a Pedagogical Support Center in Brazil were interviewed. The questions sought to obtain knowledge and the causes of their visual impairment, family composition and guidance, affective-sexual experience, level of knowledge about issues related to sexuality, among them, about contraceptive methods and sexually transmitted diseases. Results: The participants denote lack of knowledge about contraceptive methods and STDs, however, it appears that they only have superficial information. Conclusions: The results showed that visually impaired adolescents have the same characteristics of sexual development as other girls, although they have their own characteristics. It is considered that in order to generate a health promotion culture, it is essential that knowledge is made accessible to this population group.

Keywords

• sexuality
• adolescence
• visually impaired
• nursing