Cambios persistentes en conocimientos, actitudes y prácticas sobre sexualidad en adolescentes y jóvenes escolarizados de cuatro municipios de Santander - Colombia

introduction: the education for sexuality is part of the commitment to integral formation made by educative institutions in colombia; therefore, the evaluation of these features of the educative processes and the search of association with changes in knowledge, attitudes and practices among adolescents and youngsters provide information to guide and enrich strategies and programs in this field. methodology: observational and analytical longitudinal study among adolescents and youngsters with age between 12 and 19 years who received an educational process for sexuality and three measures tests of their knowledge, attitudes and practices were taken throughout a inquest, with a previous informed consent. the last measurement was done two years later from the initial educative process. in the analysis the association of variables was sought out using the spearman correlation coefficient, the student's t distribution or chi squared test depending on the type and characteristics of the variables. results: groups of 244, 111 and 139 students participated in the measuring. in terms of their knowledge a significant difference was found between genders favoring women and the group who has had sexual intercourse; in contrast, the attitudes were best between those who have not had it. likewise, it was found that there was a correlation between attitudes and practices. the didactic techniques with a statistical significance were the movie forum for knowledge and the workshop for attitudes. as educative agent the students welfare staff was the only that showed a difference when working with attitudes. conclusions: since the effectiveness of the educative training observed in the persistence and integrality of changes in knowledge, attitudes and practices still leaves many questions, it is necessary to continue the development of research about the processes of education for sexuality. salud uis 2012; 44 (2):21-33