Abstract
Adolescents in Nigeria are at risk of plethora of ills arising from risky sexual behavior in the form of multiple sexual partnerships (MSP). Despite evidence linking MSPs to age at sexual debut, there is a dearth of research among adolescents and the mediating role of the knowledge of STIs has been ignored. Hence, we examined the association between age at sexual debut and MSP and the mediating role of the knowledge of STIs in the relationship among adolescents. We utilized data from the 2018 Nigeria Demographic and Health Survey (n = 3215), employing Chi square test of association and binary logistic regression to address the study objectives. We established strong inverse relationship between age at sexual debut and MSP among adolescents in Nigeria and additionally, found that its interaction with knowledge of HIV and STIs significantly reduced adolescents’ engagement in MSP, i.e., adolescents who first had sex in later years (15+ years) were significantly less likely to have multiple sexual partners compared to adolescents who had early sexual debut (≤14 years). Early, age-appropriate, continuous, and improved awareness campaigns and reproductive health services and interventions for this population subgroup are recommended.
Highlights
Nigeria has a large population of young people, with one in every four persons being an adolescent between the age of 10–19 years [1,2,3]
Sexual activities among adolescents is undergoing changes in recent times as evidenced by the state of age at sexual debut with many young people experiencing early physical maturity and engaging in early sexual debuts as evidenced by data from various countries including Nigeria [7,8,9,10]. These transitions impact the sexual behaviors of adolescents in ways such as engaging in risky sexual behaviors such as having multiple sexual partners (MSPs), which exposes adolescents to negative sexual and reproductive health outcomes, including unwanted pregnancies and STIs, especially when they lack access to knowledge about HIV/AIDS, other STIs, or lack contraceptives needed for protection [5,11,12,13]
The majority of the adolescents reported knowing about HIV/AIDS, while a little over half reported that they have knowledge about other sexually transmitted infections
Summary
Nigeria has a large population of young people, with one in every four persons being an adolescent between the age of 10–19 years [1,2,3]. Sexual activities among adolescents is undergoing changes in recent times as evidenced by the state of age at sexual debut with many young people experiencing early physical maturity and engaging in early sexual debuts as evidenced by data from various countries including Nigeria [7,8,9,10] These transitions impact the sexual behaviors of adolescents in ways such as engaging in risky sexual behaviors such as having multiple sexual partners (MSPs), which exposes adolescents to negative sexual and reproductive health outcomes, including unwanted pregnancies and STIs, especially when 4.0/). A recent study in Nigeria, but among the general female population, submitted that early sexual debut is a significant predictor of multiple sexual partnership, and that women who had sexual debut before the age of 18 were found to significantly have between two to three and more than three lifetime sexual partners [29]
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