Background: Adolescents exhibit numerous risky sexual
behaviors leading to initiation of sexual intercourse not
mindful of the many consequences.
Objective: To determine the prevalence and pattern of
sexual risky behavior and its association with sexual
initiation.
Methods: This was a school-based descriptive cross-sectional
study among 377 in-school adolescents, who were
selected using multistage sampling methods. Research
instruments were semistructured self-administered
questionnaires.
Results: The mean age of respondents was 15.7 ( + 1.8) years.
Most of the respondents claimed to have heard about sex
education at one time or another. About 53 (14.1%) had
their first sexual experience before or at the age of 15 years.
The mean age of the first sexual experience for males was
14 years 3 months and 15 years 3 months for females. Fourteen
(3.7%) had no fixed sexual partner; most of the sexually
active respondents did not use a condom during their
last intercourse. Only 7.7% of the respondents reported
to have had a sexually transmitted infection. Most of the
207 female respondents (85.5%) had never been pregnant
while 88.9% of those who had been pregnant had an abortion.
Females were about 1.5 times more likely to have had
first sexual intercourse before the age of 15 years, though
the observed likelihood was not statistically significant
[odd ratio (OR) = 0.7, 95%; confidence interval (CI) = 0.3 – 1.5;
p = 0.642]. Likewise, males were 1.7 times more likely to
have used condoms at the last sexual intercourse, and
the observed likelihood was not statistically significant
(OR = 1.7; 95%CI = 0.8 – 3.4; p = 0.079).
Conclusion: In this study, adolescents were sexually active
with negative consequences on their reproductive health.
Stakeholders involved in the care of adolescents should
take the consequences into consideration.