Knowledge of Preventive Measures of Harmful Sexual Behaviours among In-school Adolescents in Nsukka Local Government Area, Enugu State

Abstract

The study examined the knowledge of preventive measures of harmful sexual behaviours among in-school adolescents in Nsukka Local Government Area of Enugu state. Four specific objectives, four corresponding research questions and three null hypothesis were formulated to guide the study. The study adopted a cross sectional research design. The population for the study consisted of 14,989 in-school adolescents in Nsukka LGA. The sample size was 390 in-school adolescents which were drawn using a multi stage sampling technique. The instrument for data collection was a 10 items structured questionnaire titled Knowledge of Preventive Measures of Harmful Sexual Behaviours Questionnaire (KPMHSBQ). Frequency and percentage were used to answer the research questions while chi-square statistics was used to test the hypothesis at 0.05 level of significance. The results showed that in-school adolescents had high level of knowledge (73.7%) of preventive measures of harmful sexual behaviours. There was no significant difference in the level of knowledge of preventive measures of harmful sexual behaviors based on age(p=.184>0.5), gender(p=.314>0.5), and school type (p=.083>0.5). Therefore, the study recommended that age appropriate sex education should be taught in schools as well as enlightenment campaigns on forms of harmful sexual behaviours, the preventive measures and consequences in order to maintain the high level of knowledge of preventive measures of harmful sexual behaviors among adolescents.