Introduction:
Many elements of life, such as contraception, pregnancy and childbirth, can affect sexual health; thus, health care professionals require good knowledge of sexual medicine to meet and treat patients with sexual health issues. We aimed to study the medical and midwifery students’ self-reported knowledge of factors associated with sexuality and the knowledge of how to evaluate and treat patients with sexual problems. In addition, educational interests were assessed.

Material and Methods:
A web-based questionnaire was distributed to final-year medical and midwifery students in Finland.

Results:
Altogether, 233 medical students and 131 midwifery students participated in the study. Both student groups self-reported insufficient knowledge of how to evaluate sexuality in mentally ill patients, how to encounter victims of domestic violence/sexual abuse, and how multiculturalism affects sexuality. In addition, compared to the midwifery students, the medical students were more likely to self-report insufficient knowledge of the basics of sexual pleasure and its treatment (OR 3.90, 95% CI 2.35–6.48), including how to treat sexual problems due to relationship problems (OR 2.24, 95% CI 1.32–3.81) or chronic diseases (OR 2.72, 95% CI 1.45–5.08). Although several educational fields of interest were mentioned, both student groups identified the same two topics as most desirable to learn: 1) reasons for dyspareunia and its treatment (n=117/233, 50.2% for medical students; n=60/131, 45.8% for midwifery students) and 2) lack of sexual desire and its treatment (n=100/233, 42.9% for medical students; n=55/131, 42.0% for midwifery students).

Conclusions:
In both student groups, the self-reported knowledge of sexual medicine was insufficient. Thus, more education on sexual medicine should be included in the curricula of medical and midwifery education programs.