Premarital Sexual Practice and Perception of Sexual and Reproductive Health Risks Associated With It Among in-School Youths In Shoa Robit Town, North Shoa Zone, Amhara Region, Ethiopia

Introduction: More than one billion people in the world are between the ages of 15 and 24, and most live in developing countries. Unsafe sex is a major threat to the health and survival of millions of adolescents. Each year, one in 20 adolescents worldwide contracts an STI including HIV/AIDS. Objectives: to assess premarital sexual practices and perception of sexual and reproductive health risks associated with it among in-school youths of Shoa Robit town, North Shoa Zone, Amhara National Regional state, Ethiopia Method of the study: An Institution based cross-sectional study design including both quantitative and qualitative surveys was used. To determine number of students to be included in the study, a single population proportion formula was used based on the assumption of 19% prevalence (p) in school youth premarital sex by using design effect 1.5 and at 95% confidence interval with marginal error of 4%, and finally the sample size would be 540. Result: Of the calculated sample size, total of 508 respondents completely filled to the questionnaire in the study with response rate of 94.1%. Among a total participants 274(53.9%) were females and 234 (46.1%) were males. Among the study subjects, 224 (44.1%) of them reported that they had premarital sexual intercourse at the time of the survey, of which 106 (47.3%) for males and 118(52.7%) for females. The mean age of sexual intercourse was 17.5± 1.5 years for males and 16.8± 1.4 years for females. Youths who come from urban were more likely experience sex than youths from rural (AOR=3.432; 95%CI=1.971, 5.965). Youths who drink alcohol, smoke cigarette, chew chat and watch pornographic films were more likely experience sex than who did not (AOR= 2.538; 95%CI=( (1.378-4.674), (AOR= 6.715; 95%CI=1.422,31.711), ( AOR= 5.946; 95%CI=0.998, 35.445) and (AOR= 5.119; 95%CI=2.983, 8.784) respectively. Conclusion and recommendation: In general, from this particular study, we can conclude that the level of sexual and reproductive health risk perception towards STI including ...