AWARENESS OF HEALTH CONSEQUENCES OF PRE-MARITAL SEX AMONG SECONDARY SCHOOL STUDENTS OF MBAITOLI LOCAL GOVERNMENT AREA.
The study determined awareness of health consequences of pre-marital sex among secondary school students in Mbaitoli Local Government Area, Imo State. Specifically, five research objectives in line with five Research questions and two hypotheses guided the study. The research design adopted for the study was descriptive survey design. The population of study consisted of 12,493 students within the age of 13 years – 18 years, the sample of the study comprised of two hundred and twenty students, and multi-stage sampling procedure was used to draw the sample size. The researchers structured, valid, and reliable (r=0.86)questionnaire was used for data collection. Data generated were analyzed using descriptive statistics of frequency counts, percentage, and mean to answer the research questions while chi-square was used to test the null hypotheses at 0.05 level of significant at appropriate degrees of freedom. The findings revealed that 90(40.9%) of the respondents are highly aware that pre-marital sex leads to HIV/AIDS,80(36.4%) are moderately aware, 30(13.6%) have low awareness while 20(9.1%o) are not aware with a mean of 3.1. On emotional health consequences, it was revealed that 80(36.4%) of the respondents are highly aware that broken heart is an emotional consequences of pre-marital sex, 70(31.8%) are moderately aware, 60(27.3%) have low awareness while 10(4.59%) are not aware with a mean of 3. On social health consequences, it was revealed that 94(42.7%) of the respondents are highly aware that corruption of character’s associated with pre-marital sex, 81(36.8%) are moderately aware, 35(16%) have low awareness while 40(4.5%) are not aware with a mean of 3.2. It was recommended among others that parents, health educators should improve in teaching the students the health consequences of pre-marital sex and ways of controling it. Healthcare workers and health educators should encourage public enlightenment campaign on the health consequences of pre-marital sex on regular basis through the mass media as well as the electronic media.
Keywords: Awareness, health consequences, pre-marital sex, secondary school students, Mbaitoli Local Government Area.
