Assessment Of Sexual And Reproductive Health Communication Practice And Associated Factors Among Female Undergraduate Students Of Wolaita Sodo University Southern Ethiopia

Introduction: Students of higher learning institutions are assets of the society and change agentsrnin filling the gap in the past and on whom the future generation is based. Communication aboutrnsexuality and sexual matters is more important perhaps now than any other time. This is becausernyouths are affected with the burden of unwanted pregnancy and its complication, HIV/AIDS,rnSTI, and other sexual and reproductive ill-health to a greater extent.rnObjective: This study is aiming at assessing undergraduate female students ’ communication onrnSRH issues with their partners and associated factors.rnMethod: A descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted among 815 wolaita sodo universityrnundergraduate female students by using a structured self-administer questionnaire. Stratifiedrncluster sampling was used. Simple random sampling was used to select the departments fromrneach faculty in the university. Finally, the study subjects were selected using systematic randomrnsampling technique.rnResult: The majority of the students 786 (96.4%) reported that it is important to discuss sexualrnand reproductive health with partner. However, only seven hundred seventeen (85 %) of thernstudents had discussed with their partner on at least two topics of sexual and reproductive issues.rnIn bivariate and multivariate logistic regression, age, academic year, knowledge on SRH issuernand attitude on SRH issues were predictors of students’ communication on SRH issues. Studentsrnwith age group 20-24 were less likely to communicate on SRH issues than age group 25 andrnabove (AOR=0.210, 95%CI: 0 .095 -0.463).rnThere is also significant association between student’s academic year and communication onrnSRH issues. Year five students were more likely to communicate than year one students (AOR=rn9.03, 95% CI: 2.907-28.032)rnCommunication on SRH issues was also significantly associated with having knowledge aboutrnSRH issues and attitude about those issues (AOR= 4.02, 95% CI: 2.519-6.410) andrn(AOR=7.851, 95% CI: 4.455-13.836) respectively.rnConclusion and RecommendationrnIn this study majority of the students reported that it is important to discuss sexual andrnreproductive health with partner. Although a small number of the participants reported to haverniscussed SRH matters with their parent/s, much greater were preferred to discuss with theirrnfriends/peers than parents. This shows that Sexual and RH related issues continue to be sociorncultural taboos among both young people and their parents. Therefore, strategies to enhance andrnImprove open communication on sexual and reproductive health between parents and students,rnas well as peer-to-peer education in schools, should be developed and strengthened as a means ofrnincreasing awareness about SRH issues.rnKey wordsrn university female studentsrn partner communicationrn parent communicationrn peer - peer communicationrn sexual and reproductive healthrn communication practice

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