Exposure to sexually explicit materials and its Association with psychological distress among Bonga university undergraduate students, Southwest ethiopia

Abstract

Introduction: Youth and Adolescence is an important time in the life cycle of a human being for establishing healthy behaviors, attitudes, and lifestyles that contribute to current and future health. Students in higher institutions are exposed to many psychological problems and exposure to risky behaviors like using electronic media which has explicit content as they are away from their parents and possibly due to suboptimal counseling services. Despite this concern, there is no information regarding the psychological health status and other risky behaviors of students in higher learning institutions in Ethiopia. Objective: the main aim of this study is to assess the magnitude of exposure to sexually explicit materials and its association with psychological distress among Bonga University students, Southwest Ethiopia Methods: A institutional-based cross-sectional study was conducted among randomly selected 380 regularly attending undergraduate students in Bonga University, Ethiopia 2022. A pre-tested, self-administered structured questionnaire was used and data were entered into Epi-data version 3.1 and transported to SPSS version 25 software packages for analysis. In order to assess the association, bivariate and multiple logistic regression analyses were done. With 95% CI, the p- value of less than 0.05 was taken as the level of significance. Finally, the result was displayed by text, table and graphs. Result: Out of a total participant 74.7% reported that they were ever watched sexually explicit materials and the prevalence of psychological distress among exposed to sexually explicit materials in the last 3 months prior to data collection was 69.4%. Exposure to Sexually explicit material within last 12 months (AOR= 4.088, 95% CI: (1.364,12.250, daily exposed(watching) to SEMs (AOR=3.672, 95%CI: 2.554-5.280), Not attending religious program (AOR=1.592, 95%CI: 1.037-2.443), and being male students (AOR=2.975, 95%CI:1.891-4.681), chewed khat (AOR=2.052, 95% CI: 1.182-3.563) and smoking cigarette (AOR=7.915, 95% CI: 1.841-34.027 were significantly associated with psychological distress. Conclusion: A high numbers of university students were being exposed to sexually explicit electronic materials and the main source is internet. There is a significant association between exposure to SE electronic materials and psychological distress, students who frequently watching SEMs are more likely develop psychological distress. This demonstrated that the ease of access to the internet and contemporary technological advancements enhanced the exposure of young people in university to sexually explicit content