SOCIAL MEDIA USE AND REPRODUCTIVE KNOWLEDGE AND BEHAVIOUR OF UNDERGRADUATES IN THE UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN, IBADAN, NIGERIA

Abstract

Social media, including Facebook, Whatsapp, and Twitter, have the ability to provide supportive environment for the exploration of friendship, romance, and social status, while at the same time giving young people the opportunity to share and discuss their opinion on so many subjects like music, knowledge of television programmes and movies, online videos/games, and so on. Young people tend to embrace the online world with much enthusiasm, as it represents a place where they are visible to and can communicate with their peer groups without adult supervision. The amount of time young people dedicate to social media could make them susceptible to information that could have negative or positive influence on their reproductive health. There has been few study exploring the relationship between social media and reproductive health knowledge and behaviour of young people hence, this study was aimed at exploring the relationship between social media use and reproductive knowledge and behaviour among undergraduates of the University of Ibadan. The study employed a cross-sectional survey design involving a sample of 422, of which only 386 self-administered questionnaire were found valid for analyses, giving a response rate of 91.5%. A multi-stage sampling technique was used to select respondents. A 14 point knowledge scale was used to classify knowledge into three categories: >12 was classified as a good knowledge, a score of >5 to <12 was considered as fair knowledge while < 5 was classified as having poor knowledge. Data on use of social media and reproductive behaviour were presented in percentages. Data were analysed using descriptive statistics and inferential statistics at p<0.05. Mean age of respondents was 20.2+2.5 years and many (52.6%) were males. All respondents have at least one social media application on their Smartphones. A larger percentage (99.7%) of respondents have Whatsapp, 92.0%; Facebook, 80.0%; Instagram, 94.8%; YouTube, 34.7%; Snapchat, 21.5%; Telegram, 49.2%; Twitter, and the least was Hangout at 2.8%. The mostly used application is Whatsapp with 80.8%, followed by Facebook which 46.1% respondents claim to use always. Majority (65.8%) of respondents preferred Whatsapp to all other social media applications. A large majority (93.8%) had a good knowledge of reproductive health (mean score of 12.8±1.1). More than a quarter of respondents (26.7%) claimed to have had sex before. Majority (70.9%) of respondents, who have had sex before, had their sexual debut within the age range of 15-19years. More than half of respondents (73.0%) who claimed to have had sex before were still sexually active as at the time of this study. Majority (64.8%) of those who were still sexually active do not use condom every time they have sex. There was no statistically significant association between the use of social media and reproductive behaviour; gender and reproductive knowledge; gender and reproductive behaviour. However, there was a statistically significant association between use of social media and reproductive knowledge. The use of social media have an influence on reproductive knowledge but not on reproductive behaviour. Therefore, social media should be maximally used in communicating with young people about reproductive health. Keywords: Social media, University undergraduates, Reproductive health.