University Students: The Emerging Most At Risk Population in Ethiopia

Introduction: Researches in developed countries revealed college environment offers great opportunity for HIV high-risk behaviors. However, there isn’t scientifically collected data in the universities in rural settings. Thus the objective of the study is to assess the risky sexual behaviors of University students.
Methods: The study was conducted in Samara University, Ethiopia using quantitative and qualitative methods of cross sectional study design to 422 randomly selected students and key informants. Descriptive statistics and logistic regressions with 95% confidence intervals were calculated. Qualitative data were transcribed, translated, and analyzed.
Results: Among those with sexual experience (47%), unplanned/casual sexual relations was the most prevalent risk behaviour. Moreover , 54.3% students had sex in the previous one  year and from this  27.7%  had more than one sexual partner , 72.3 had unplanned sex, 55.6 % visited CSW  and  45.7% had sex in exchange for money or gifts. Females were 4 times more likely to have sex than males (95%CI; (1.72, 11.59). Peer pressure, sex, drinking alcohol and risk perception were strongly associated with sexual experience.  Sexually transmitted disease including HIV/AIDS risk perception is a strong predictor of had sex in the last 12 months and multiple sexual partnership (AOR=9.1; 95%CI, (2.59, 31.93) and AOR=10.015; 95%CI, 2.70-37.78) respectively 
Conclusion and recommendation: The prevalence of risky sexual behaviors was high. More than half of the students were sexually active in the last one year, have multiple sexual partners, had unplanned/casual sex and visited CSW. Therefore urgent response would be given to this priority issue by the concerned bodies like ministry of education, Ministry of health, the university community, NGOs etc.  Sexual and reproductive health services to reduce the risky sexual behaviors and to promote reproductive health education should be designed for university students especially in the universities established in the rural setting.
The number of words of the abstract:298