Premarital sexual practice and associated factors among high school youths in Debretabor town, South Gondar zone, North West Ethiopia, 2017

(2019) 12:314 Arega et al. BMC Res Notes https://doi.org/10.1186/s13104-019-4348-3 BMC Research Notes Open Access RESEARCH NOTE Premarital sexual practice and associated factors among high school youths in Debretabor town, South Gondar zone, North West Ethiopia, 2017 Wondmnew Lakew Arega1, Taye Abuhay Zewale2* and Kassawmar Angaw Bogale3 Abstract Objective: Premarital sex is voluntary sexual intercourse between unmarried persons. Prevalence and factors associated with premarital sexual practice in the study area are lacking. Thus, the aims of this study were to determine the prevalence and to identify factors associated with premarital sexual practice among Debretabor high school youths. Results: The prevalence of premarital sex among Debretabor town high school youths was 22.5% of which 63.9% of them were males. Among those high school youths, the majority (60.2%) had their first sexual intercourse at the age of 15–19 years. The main reason for initiation of sexual intercourse was due to fell in love which accounts 48.1%, followed by sexual desire 22.2%. Predictors that are risk for premarital sex were youths who did not attend religious education [AOR = 7.4, 95% CI (3.32, 16.43)], having boy or girl friends [AOR = 9.66, 95% CI (4.80, 19.43)], drinking alcohol every day [AOR = 9.43, 95% CI (2.86, 31.14)] and less than twice a week [AOR = 2.52, 95% CI (1.22, 5.21)], watching pornography film [AOR = 5.15, 95% CI (2.56, 10.37)] and youths came from rural residing families [AOR = 0.51, 95% CI (0.27, 0.96)]. Keywords: Premarital sex, Youths, Debretabor, Ethiopia Introduction Youths are in a state of rapid physical and psychological change. They have curiosity and urge to experience new phenomena [1]. Nevertheless, youths are exposed to different circumstance like fears, worries and different desires, they feel shame to get advice and guidance from their parents and elders [2]. Over a life cycle approach, youths and their communities need to know about reproductive health so that, they can make informed decisions about their reproductive health and sexuality [3, 4]. Premarital sex, defined as voluntary sexual intercourse between unmarried persons, is increasing worldwide [5]. It is unsafe because, most youths have no enough *Correspondence: 2 Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, School of Public Health, College of Medicine and Health Sciences, Bahir-Dar University, Bahir Dar, Ethiopia Full list of author information is available at the end of the article awareness on how to prevent and how to get guidance services on reproductive anatomy, physiology, sexually transmitted infection (STI), and Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) [6, 7]. As a result, they are exposed to serious problems including premarital sex with its consequences and emotional scar [8, 9]. Though, schools are institutions where sufficient information and formal educations are provided to youths, premarital sexual practice among high school youths have been increased worldwide [10]. Globally, 35.3 million people live with HIV/AIDS of which youths account 2.1 million. Among 2.3 million new HIV infections, youths (15–24 years) account more than half [7]. Illegal abortions, risk of HIV infections and school dropout are the bad consequences of pre-marital sex in sub-Saharan Africa [11]. Up to 25% of 15–19 years, old youth’s exercised sex before age 15. In Ethiopia, the prevalence of premarital sex is increasing [12–14]. A study conducted in Eastern part of Ethiopia and Lalibela Town © The Author(s) 2019. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/ publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated. Arega et al. BMC Res Notes (2019) 12:314 reported that above one-fourth of the school youths were exposed to premarital sex [12, 15]. Another study which is done in west Shoa Zone reported that about 60% of high school youths were exercised premarital sex [9]. Different scholars identified inconsistent factors which were positively or negatively associated with premarital sexual practice. Some of these factors includes age of students, sex, residence, educational level, peer pressure, having pocket money, substance use, alcohol drink, watching pornography movie, living arrangement, discussion with parents about sexual issues, having peers who are experienced sex and fall in love and access religious and life skill education [9, 12–17]. According to Debretabor district health office report sexually transmitted diseases, abortion and unwanted pregnancy are high in the study area among youths [18]. However, prevalence of premarital sexual practice and its associated factors among high school youths (grade 9th to grade 12th) in the study area was not dealt yet. Thus, this study aimed to determine premarital sexual practices and associated factors among high school youths in Debretabor town, south Gondar, Ethiopia. Main text Methods Study design and setting School based cross-sectional study design was conducted from September 18 to October 16, 2017, among high school youths in Debretabor town, South Gondar zone, Ethiopia. Debretabor town is located at 667 km from Addis Ababa, capital city of Ethiopia and has three high schools. The total numbers of high school youths in the study area by the year 2017 were 8892 (5220 females and 3672 males) [18]. Source population The source population was all high school youths who were residing in Debretabor town and its surrounding rural Kebeles. Study population The study population was all high-school youths aged 15 to 24 years that were enrolled as a regular day-time student in 2017. Inclusion criteria All secondary school youths aged 15–24 attending regular class in Debretabor town during data collection period were included in the study. Exclusion criterion Married high school youths were excluded. Page 2 of 7 Sample size determination Sample size was calculated using a single population pro(Z 2 p(1−p) portion formula designated as n = α/2)d 2 based on the assumptions of P-value = 0.25 which was the proportion of premarital sex among in-school youths in Jimma [19], a 95% confidence level, 4% margin of error (d) and 10% non-response rate. Accordingly, the total sample size calculated was 497. Sampling procedure All the high schools in the town were included in the study, and total sample size was proportionally allocated to each school. The lists of youths were obtained from the respective school registrar. Then, the study participants from each school were selected by computer g (...truncated)