Abstract
BackgroundThe early age of sexual initiation contribute a lot for various risks such as mistimed pregnancy followed by insecure termination, developing fistula and contracting sexually transmitted infections which are currently the major public health concerns for low-income countries. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to detect spatial clusters and identify factors associated with an early age sexual initiation of women in the reproductive age group.MethodsWe used a population-based nationwide representative Ethiopian Demographic and Health Survey (EDHS) 2016 data.. A total of 12,033 respondents of reproductive age (15–49 years) women who had at least one event of sexual intercourse was retrieved and included for the analysis. Spatial cluster detection and autocorrelation analysis were also done to explore the patterns of early age sexual initiation.ResultsThe median age at first sexual intercourse among respondents was 16 (±3.3) years and more than half (66.2%) had their first sexual intercourse before the age of 18 years. The spatial variations of the age of sexual initiation was nonrandom and clustered with a Moran’s I = 0.413 (P-value < 0.001). In addition, five significant spatial clusters were also identified. Moreover, the probability of starting sex at an earlier age was associated with the respondent’s residence, marital status, educational attainment and wealth index.ConclusionThis study found a higher proportion of an early age sexual initiation of women. Respondent’s residence, marital status, educational attainment and wealth index were significantly associated with early sexual initiation. The SaTScan analysis identified five statistical significant spatial clusters which indicate that there were geographical variations. Therefore, integrated interventions focusing on the identified high spot clustered areas are recommended to reduce early age sexual initiation.
Highlights
The early age of sexual initiation contribute a lot for various risks such as mistimed pregnancy followed by insecure termination, developing fistula and contracting sexually transmitted infections which are currently the major public health concerns for low-income countries
Socio-demographic characteristics From the total 12,033 women who participated in the study, a higher number of participants 37.6 and 24.8% were from Oromia and Amhara regions respectively
5235 (43.5%) were Orthodox Christians followed by Muslim 3945 (32.8%) by religion
Summary
The early age of sexual initiation contribute a lot for various risks such as mistimed pregnancy followed by insecure termination, developing fistula and contracting sexually transmitted infections which are currently the major public health concerns for low-income countries. According to World Health Organization (WHO) report, annual number of maternal deaths and life time risk had showed significant improvement. From 20 million unsafe abortions done worldwide, 68,000 of maternal deaths were reported; from which teenage girls account for 14% [2]. 1.2 billion worldwide population are adolescents aged from 10 to 19 years; more than 1.1 million adolescent groups died of preventable causes related to pregnancy and childbirth complications which is the leading cause of death for 15–19 year’s old age groups of girls [3]. Among adolescents with age less than 17 years; 30% of them have had sex and 252,000 pregnancies occur annually [4]
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