Risk and Protective Factors Influencing Multiple Sexual Partners among Adolescents in Rivers State

Background: The period of adolescence is characterized by changes and experimentations that could lay the foundation for life-long sexual and reproductive health problems. These include early sexual debut, multiple sexual partners, and sexually transmitted infections including HIV, unsafe abortion, and death. To inform contextualized and culturally appropriate preventive strategies, this study identified the predictors of multiple sexual partners among adolescents in Rivers State.

Methodology: Using a cross-sectional study design, 671 adolescents were interviewed with structured interviewer-administered questionnaires. The proportion of sexually experienced respondents was determined and adjusted odd ratios of predictors derived from multivariate logistic regression models.

Results: Out of the 671 adolescents surveyed, 53.1% were females. Nearly half 313 (46.6 %) of the respondents were sexually exposed, of which 148 (47.3%) had multiple sexual partners. After adjusting for covariates, religion, marital status, education, employment, living arrangement, father’s education, individual perceptions, peer behaviour, family, and community norms predicted multiple sexual partners (p<0.05). Specifically, respondents with no religious affiliation were two times more likely to have multiple sexual partners compared to Catholics. Similarly, ever-married respondents were three times as likely to have multiple sexual partners. Further, relative to those with no formal education, respondents with secondary and tertiary education had a five- and 15-fold increased likelihood of having multiple sexual partners, respectively. Finally, respondents with higher individual, peer, and community domain scores had at least a three-fold increased likelihood of having multiple sexual partners.

Conclusion: There is a need to contextualize age and gender-appropriate reproductive health interventions for adolescents.