Correlates of condom use with “main” and “concurrent” sex partners among urban youth in post-conflict Liberia

Abstract

This paper presents baseline findings on correlates of condom use with “main” and “concurrent” sex partners among Liberian youth (ages 15–17) in Liberia. With Liberia having recently emerged from fourteen years of civil war, this paper is one of only a few published reports of the sexual risk behaviors of urban youth residing in Monrovia, Liberia’s capital. The analysis was limited to highly, sexually active Liberian adolescents who reported having sex with both “main” and “concurrent” sex partners in the last three months (n = 214). Data were used from a baseline survey of a community randomized controlled trial of an HIV prevention intervention. Multinomial logistic regression analysis was conducted to assess correlates of condom use among respondents who used condoms with both main and concurrent partners, when compared to respondents who used condoms with main partners only, and when compared to respondents who used condoms with concurrent partners only. Findings suggest that among Liberian adolescents who have both main and concurrent sex partners, males were more likely to use a condom with both partner types when compared to females, relative to those who did not use condoms with both partner types. Greater parent/child communication about sex and use of a condom at first sexual debut were associated with condom use in main only and concurrent only sex partnerships, relative to those who did not use a condom with either partner types.