Sexual behaviours of malawian adolescents: associations, and patternsfrom malawian national survey

Introduction: Adolescent sexuality is an area of public health concern in High HIV prevalence context like Malawi. As any country’s future is based on the adolescents’ health status. Hence, the knowledge of adolescent sexual behaviours is very important. This study intended to discover the Malawian adolescent sexual behaviours, in terms of their patterns and trends, with a special focus on: whether adolescents have ever had sex before or not, age at first sexual intercourse, number of sexual partners, and use of condoms at last sex.
Methods: A cross-sectional quantitative study conducted among Malawian adolescents.We did a secondary analysis of Malawi adolescent Global School-based Student Health Survey (2009) data sets, and calculated the associations, patterns and trends of adolescent sexual behaviours of the data. The study involved 637264 adolescent participants.319851 were males and 305149 were females representing 51.2% and 48.8% respectively.
Results: The study involved adolescents aged between 13 – 17. It revealed that of the total 23.2% had ever had sex before. However, there is no statistical significance of being a male or female participants and being involved in sex (Chi-Square Tests: 0.000). In terms of association, being male was positively linked to be involved in a sexual activity (OR, 1.085; 95% CI, 1.059-1.111) while females were unlikely to be involved in a sexual activity (OR, 0.352; 95% CI, 1.059 - 1.111). The study revealed that adolescents had started sexual intercourse at different ages. For example 5.1% had sex before the age of 11, 2.5% had sex at 12, 2.0% had sex at 13, 1.2% had sex 14 and 0.6% had sex at 15 while at age 16 and more no one had sex. The study found that male participants were more likely to have sexual intercourse earlier (OR, 1.176; 95% CI, 1.121: 1.234) while females were unlikely to have sexual intercourse earlier (OR, 0.824; 95% CI, 1.121 - 1.234). The study revealed that 11.7% of adolescents had sexual partners. Males were not likely to be involved in multiple sexual partners (OR, .546; 95% CI, 0.539 - 0.553).The study discoveredthat6.5% of adolescents had used condom at last intercourse and 3.5% had not used condom at last intercourse. The study also found that males were linked use condom at last intercourse (OR, 1.519; 95% CI, 0.708 - 0.717) while females were not linked with use condom at last intercourse (OR, 0.344; 95% CI, 0.708 - 0.717).
Conclusion: It is suggested that efforts to improve sexual health of adolescents would do good to adolescents(discourage teenage sex, age at first sexual intercourse after 19 years, to be faithful to one partner, and to constantly use of condoms during sex when not married).