Correlates of Premarital Sexual Practice Among High School Female Adolescents in Maichew Town, Southern Tigray, Ethiopia
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Date
2008-06
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Addis Ababa University
Abstract
The main objective of this study is to investigate correlates of premarital sexual
practice among high school female adolescents in Maichew town. The study
was conducted during February to April, 2008 on 624 never married school
female adolescents in the age group 15-20 years. Respondents were selected
using stratified random sampling. Bivariate analysis was used to assess the
relationship of the independent variables with the dependent variable by using
chi-square test; and multivariate (logistic regression) analysis was carried out to
explore the net effects independent variables by controlling possible inteNening
variables
The study findings shows that 29.3 percent of never married school female
adolescents had experienced sexual intercourse with mean age at first sex 16.6
years. Among sexually experienced high school female adolescents, 43.2
percent have ever been pregnant, and 25.1 percent have ever given birth. The
findings of the study also show that parent-adolescent discussion, mother's
education, mother's occupation, parental residence, peer influence, siblings'
influence, respondent's age and respondent's employment status are
significantly associated with female adolescents' premarital sexual practice.
The likelihood of being sexually active for adolescents whose mothers'
educational level was secondary or above decreased by 67 percent as
compared to adolescents whose mothers had no formal education.
Adolescents who didn't" discuss sex-related matters with their parents were 1.6
times more likely to have had sex as compared with adolescents who discussed
sex-related issues with their parents. Adolescents, who had sexually experienced
intimate friend, were 4.8 times more likely to have had sex as compared to
adolescents who had no sexually experienced intimate friends. Similarly, the
relative risk of having sexual intercourse for adolescents who had sexually
experienced elder sister was 3.2 times higher as compared to female
adolescents who had no sexually experienced elder sisters. Living arrangement
was found not to have significant effect on premarital sexual activities of
adolescents.
It has been recommended that an appropriate inteNention program is required
to meet the special needs of female adolescents focusing on education and
counseling in the areas of responsible sexual behavior, responsible family
planning practice, reproductive health, and HIV/A/DS prevention. This is required
to equip female adolescent with meaningful reproductive health knowledge so
as to maximize their awareness about risky-sexual behavior and to help them
make wise decision before the actual involvement into sexual activities.
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Keywords
Adolescents in Maichew Town