Abstract:
Background: Students of higher institutions are assumed to be exposed to many risky sexual
behaviors. Evidences notify that most of higher learning students rush to range of maladaptive
high-risk activities like, substance use and sexual abuse which predispose to HIV/AIDS. More
often this is unrecognized and not well researched. There is no further study done in Arba Minch
University about the magnitude of risky behavior and predisposing factors. Thus, the objective of
this study is to assess the prevalence of risky sexual behaviors and predisposing factors among
Arba Minch University students.
Method: Institution based cross sectional study was conducted among Arba Minch University
students from Feb.30 March 10 2015. A multistage cluster sampling technique was employed to
recruit 704 students. A pretested and structured self-administered questionnaire was used. Data
were entered; cleaned and exported to SPSS version 20. Descriptive statistics including
frequencies, percentages, and standard deviations was used to describe findings. The presence of
association was assessed using odds ratio and associations with p-value <0.05 was considered
statistically significant. Multi-variate logistic regression was used to control confounding effects.
RESULT: From study participants about 30.4% [95% CI: 27.0, 33.7] of students had practicing
risky sexual behavior. Third year students [AOR= 2.26; 95% CI: 1.2, 4.25], khat chewing
[AOR= 2.2; 95% CI: 1.5, 3.27], smoking tobacco [AOR= 2.8; 95% CI: 1.74, 4.49] and attending
night club [AOR= 3.28; 95% CI: 2.1, 5.12] were significantly associated with risky sexual
behavior.
Conclusion: The prevalence of risky sexual behavior was relatively low than a studies done
among Jimma, Haramaya and Madawalabu Universities. The use of substance, especially khat
and alcohol, exposed to night club and academic year of students were independently and
significantly associated with risky sexual behavior among Arba Minch University students.
Health care organization, NGOS and other relevant sectors improving the already existing youth
friendly risky sexual behavior programmers in Arba Minch University.
