Prevalence of Premarital sexual practices and associated factors among Jimma Teacher training college students in Jimma Town

Abstract

Background- The World Health Organization defines “adolescents” as people age 10-19; “youth” as those age 15-24; and “young people” as those ages 10-24. Related to their premarital sexual activities, adolescents in Ethiopia are exposed to various risks such as unprotected sex, early marriage, early unwanted pregnancy, unsafe abortion, maternal death, sexually transmitted infections and human immune-deficiency virus, unemployment, drug abuse and crime. Objectives –to assess the prevalence of premarital sexual practices and associated factors among Jimma Teacher Training College students in Jimma Town. Methods – A facility based cross-sectional study (both quantitative and qualitative) design was conducted on 361 students. A pre-tested structured questionnaires and semi structured interview guides used to collect data from February 28 to March 05,2013.The data was entered, cleaned and analyzed by using SPSS version 16. Bivariate and multivariate logistic regressions were used for quantitative data analysis while thematic analysis was used for qualitative data analysis. Result - One hundred forty two (39.7%) of the study population had practiced premarital sexual intercourse, of whom 90(63.4%) were males and 52(36.6%) were females. The mean age at first sexual intercourse was 17.75 for males and 17.98 for females. Variables such as, level of students ( college year), mothers having private business, having pocket money, friends dating experience, communication with families, source of sexual and reproductive health and seeing pornography were significantly associated with young people’s premarital sexual practices both at crude and adjusted odd ratios at p<0.05. Conclusion and recommendations- There is a high prevalence of premarital sexual practices(39.7%) among the young people. Young people were found to start premarital sexual practice at their earlier age (15-19) with mean age of 17.75 for males and 17.98 for females. Young people were practicing risky sexual behaviors such as seeing of pornography, drinking alcoholic beverages, chewing chat, having more than one sexual partner, sex with commercial sex workers and using drugs like hashish. Therefore, an integrated effort needs to be initiated to address such young people’s sexual and reproductive health problems through consistent provision of sorted and filtered information about young people reproductive health in general and premarital sexual practices and associated factors in particular to the college young people by the concerned governmental and non- governmental agencies.