SEXUAL BEHAVIOUR OF FIRST YEAR NATIONAL DIPLOMA STUDENTS OF PETROLEUM TRAINING INSTITUTE EFFURUN WARRI, DELTA STATE, NIGERIA

Abstract

Students in the first year of a tertiary institution are usually leaving home for the first time, would be without direct parental supervision and are particularly vulnerable to peer pressure. Risky sexual behaviour which can occur in such settings could have deleterious effects on their reproductive health. Understanding the sexual behaviour and experiences of the youths in the first year of tertiary education call for designing of appropriate intervention programs. This study was therefore designed to determine the sexual behaviour of First year Students of Petroleum Training Institute (PTI), Effurun Warri, Delta State, Nigeria.This study was a cross-sectional study design involving all consenting 440 first year Ordinary National Diploma (OND) students in the institution. A validated semi-structured self-administered instrument containing questions on sexual practices and condom use were used to collect information on sexual and reproductive health knowledge and practices. Knowledge were assessed using an eight (8)-point Sexual and reproductive health (SRH) knowledge scale in which scores ≥5 were categorised as high knowledge. Sexual practices were assessed on a twenty two (22) point scale in which scores ≥11 were categorised as good practices. Descriptive statistics and Chi-square test was used to analyse the data at p=0.05. The age of respondents was 22.6±13.7 years with the majority (66.8%) aged between 20 to 25 years. The majority (78.2%) of the respondents were males. Ninety-seven percent of the respondents had never been married and 87.3% resided on campus. The three top courses respondents studied were: Science Laboratory Technology (21.6%), Petroleum/Marketing/Business Studies (18.6%) and Welding and Offshore Technology (18.6%). Knowledge of SRH was 5.3±1.2 with a considerable proportion of respondents having fairly good knowledge (78.4%). Out of 249 respondents who ever had sex, 85.6% of them were males and age at first experience was 18.9±3.4 years with about half (51.5%) started at age 15-19 years. Out of 135 respondents having sexual partners currently, 68.8% had one sexual partner of which males accounted for 68.2%. About a third (31.2%) of those who were sexually active had more than one sexual partner, 34 (85.0%) of whom were males. The commonest sexual practice among, the respondents was penile-vaginal sex (82.8%). More of males (14.5%) had multiple sexual partners than females (7.3%) and 28.6% expressed doubt about sexual fidelity of their sexual partners. Sexually related behaviour and experiences of the respondents included: receiving (16.4%) and exchanging gifts (28.1%) for sex and 21.1% had experienced genital discharge. About half (52.0%) of the sexually active respondents used condoms as at the last sexual intercourse. More male respondents (73.7%) were currently sexually active. The majority (63.5%) aged 20-25 years old were involved in transactions, sexual behaviour like giving or receiving money/gifts for sexual intercourse (63.5%) and they consisted of more males (92.1%). Transactional sexual behaviour was common among the first year students of the Petroleum Training Institute. Intervention programs such as premarital sex education to promote youths and young adult reproductive health are advocated.