Habits and acknowledgement related to the prevention of sexually transmissible infection and pregnancy of college students of health area of a public university

Abstract

A quantitative field research was developed using questionnaires answered by 262 college students of UFOP over 18 years old to describe their habits and acknowledgement about the preventive methods for sexually transmitted infections (STIs) and prevention of undesirable pregnancy. From 237 students, 153 were female gender (64.6%), 220 were single (92.8%), 122 were living in fraternities (51.5%), 85% of women (n=128) and 95% of men (n=61) had started their sexual life, 42.5% (n=101) had not used condom in all intercourse that they had and 23.6% (n=56) had sex with alcohol and / or drugs consumption. About the knowledge of contraceptive methods, the most known ones were the barrier methods (32.7%) and hormonal contraception (27.4%) and they were also the most used (44.8% and 31.1%, respectively). About STIs prevention, 76.1% (n=424) of 557 responses were for efficient methods. The most known STIs were HIV/AIDS (91.6%), gonorrhea (85.7%), hepatitis B (84.4%) and syphilis (84.0%). The present work shows young college students had insufficient knowledge about contraceptive methods and STIs prevention methods and importance.