Sexual Wellbeing in Adolescence Scale (Adol-SW) (Turner et al, 2026)

• Populations: Adolescents 
• Age ranges: 14-19
• Languages: English
• Countries: United Kingdom

Items

I feel confident I could get sexual health support (e.g. condoms, contraception, testing for sexually transmitted infections) if I needed it.

I have someone that I can talk with openly about sex and relationships.

If I were to have a bad sexual experience, I have someone I can talk to.

Thinking about sex makes me feel ashamed.

The idea of having sex makes me feel anxious.

I feel left out when people talk about sex.

I feel comfortable with who I am attracted to (e.g. boys, girls, any gender, no one).

I’m anxious that someone might try to touch me in sexual ways I don’t want.

I feel pressure to do things sexually that I don’t want to.

I worry that if someone asked me out, they would only want sex.

I worry about being bad at sex. 

Most days I feel attractive. 

I feel anxious about what others will think of my naked body. 

Scoring

Answer options: strongly agree; agree; neither agree nor disagree; disagree; strongly disagree. 

Citations

Billie Turner Melissa Palmer, Raquel Bosó Pérez, Ruth Lewis, Lucia F. O’Sullivan, Sally McManus, Chris Bonell, Elizabeth McDermott, Kirstin R. Mitchell (2026). Development and validation of the sexual wellbeing in Adolescence Scale (Adol-SW): A brief measure for adolescent health surveys, SSM - Mental Health, Volume 10, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ssmmh.2026.100672.

Team comments

The Adol-SW measure was designed by the Good Measure project team as a key output of the Good Measure project. 

If you are interested in using this measure, please contact kirstin.mitchell@glasgow.ac.uk