Abstract
BackgroundStatus of premarital sex, unintended pregnancy and associated factors among Chinese graduate students remain unclear. And unmarried graduate students’ needs of family planning services seem to be ignored. In the present study, we ascertained the prevalence rate of premarital sex and unintended pregnancy, as well as estimated the possible factors associated with unintended pregnancy among unmarried Chinese graduate students, and evaluated their reproductive health needs.MethodsWe obtained the representative sample of graduate students using a multistage, stratified, cluster design, and collected data using a questionnaire.ResultsWe obtained 11936 responders. Premarital sexual intercourse was acknowledged by 24.2% of responders; unintended pregnancy was acknowledged by 4.8% of responders (19.8% of students active in premarital sex); and abortion was acknowledged by 4.6% of responders (96.7% of pregnant students). In multivariate analysis, the identified risk factors for unintended pregnancy among both genders that were active in premarital sex were: (1) having no steady lover [for males: odds ratio (OR), 1.96, 95% confidence interval (CI), 1.41-2.70; for females: OR, 2.65; 95%CI, 1.56-4.84]; (2) younger age at the first sexual intercourse (for males: OR, 1.62, 95% CI, 1.22-2.15; for females: OR, 2.57; 95% CI, 1.64-4.02); (3) lack of condom use at the first sex (for males: OR, 1.13, 95% CI, 1.09-1.37; for females: OR, 2.81; 95% CI, 1.81-4.39); (4) unaware of the conditions of conception (for males: OR, 1.69, 95% CI, 1.31-2.19; for females: OR, 1.75; 95% CI, 1.16-2.65); and (5) unaware that abortion endangers women's future pregnancy (for males: OR, 2.98, 95% CI, 2.15-4.14; for females: OR, 2.34; 95% CI, 1.23-4.46). Medical graduates were not less likely to have unintended pregnancy than nonmedical graduates for both genders.ConclusionsThe avoidable risk of being unintended pregnancy among graduate students in China indicates that an urgent need to take action on how to delay the age of first sex, promote condom use at first sex, and acquire accurate contraceptive information, as well as improve skills to use reliable contraception among graduate students.
Highlights
Status of premarital sex, unintended pregnancy and associated factors among Chinese graduate students remain unclear
Some reports showed that services of contraceptive education are still in shortage and that short-acting contraception suitable for persons who have no child are mainly aimed at married persons or at women that are going to have premarital examinations [7,13,14]
In the third stage, stratified cluster sampling was used to select class: (a) classes were divided into two layers; (b) six classes of master candidate were randomly sampled from university/ college that only has master's degree authorization; six classes of master candidate and two classes of doctoral candidate were randomly sampled from university/ college that have both master's degree and doctoral’ degree authorization); (c) all unmarried graduate students in these chosen classes were recruited, which based on ethical guidelines
Summary
Status of premarital sex, unintended pregnancy and associated factors among Chinese graduate students remain unclear. We ascertained the prevalence rate of premarital sex and unintended pregnancy, as well as estimated the possible factors associated with unintended pregnancy among unmarried Chinese graduate students, and evaluated their reproductive health needs. With the growing incidence of premarital and extramarital sex in young people, unintended pregnancy and abortion have be-. It has been practiced to raise living standards by controlling family size and slowing down population growth. It stipulates that a couple should have only one child [11]. Many unmarried young people did not know where or how to obtain contraception 10 years ago [15]. Lack of counseling and privacy in these services prevents many unmarried people from seeking contraception services [5]
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