Sociodemographic factors as predictors of sexual behavior of secondary school students in Lagos State, Nigeria

Background: Secondary school students are exposed to risky sexual behaviors that put them at certain risk of negative consequences. The aim of this study was to investigate the sociodemographic factors as predictors of sexual behavior of secondary school students in Lagos State, Nigeria. Materials and Methods: A survey design was used for the study. The data were collected using self-developed structured questionnaire called youth sexual behavior questionnaire, the co-variates collected in the questionnaire were: Gender, age and sociological factors. The instrument had test-retest reliability co-effi cient of 0.78 while purposive sampling technique was used to select the schools and respondents. Totally, 2720 students were randomly selected for the study and inferential statistics of multiple regression, mean, t-test and ANOVA were used to analyze the data. Results: Results indicated that all the three co-variates used in the study were signifi cant. Which shows a signifi cant value for gender, age and sociological factors respectively (t = 6.753, P < 0.05), F(3, 2350) (79.930, P < 0.05) and F(4, 2394) (260.020 P < 0.05). Majority of the students were of the opinion that they engaged in premarital sexual activities despite its attendant consequences. Conclusion: Gender, age and sociological factors could infl uence the sexual behavior of secondary school students in Lagos State signifi cantly; it was also observed that most of these factors negatively infl uence youth’s sexual activities.


INTRODUCTION
The populations of the adolescents and the young adults have increased signifi cantly over the years.There has been an observation that the population of young people between the ages of 10 and 24 is becoming larger than it used to be in history. [1]This group of people account for >20% of the sub-Saharan African population. [2]These adolescents and young people are considered as assets to the community and have the potentials to contribute positively to global development. [3]xual interests among adolescents, as among adults, can vary greatly.Sexual activity in general is associated with various risks including unwanted pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases including HIV/AIDS.The risks are elevated for young adolescents because they are sexually active.Adolescents and young adults have been found to develop varying degrees of increased in the opposite sex, and they are usually interested in both physical and sexual attractiveness.These tendencies expose them to certain risks.In addition, adolescents are more likely to make decisions without making a thorough consideration of the consequences. [4]cording to Butler, gender has increasingly been seen not simply as lived, but as "performed" through the constant iteration and reenactment of what are regarded as the essential characteristics of both sex (male and female) and gender. [5]In such theorizations, we seem to move ever further from any preexisting essence of femininity or masculinity. [6]Sexuality may always have been an arena of moral and cultural confl ict, but in contemporary societies sexuality is becoming an increasingly stances.Abortion, sex education, same-sex marriage, and the family are keystone issues on which views seem irreconcilable because they speak of the sort of society we are, and want.
Sexuality is a psychosocial phenomenon in adolescence.The increased production of androgen the hormone that is mainly responsible for an increase in sexual drive makes the adolescents experience a new sexual and drive urge, making them increasingly aware of their own sexuality, this new awareness greatly infl uences the adolescents' emotion and self-concept. [7]e impact of certain sociodemographic factors on sexual behaviors of adolescents have been investigated by various researchers and they found out that educational level of household and the infl uence of urban and rural settlement have roles to play in the sexual behaviors among adolescents. [8,9][12] Other sociodemographic factors that may have a direct infl uence on sexual behaviors are young age, [12][13][14] female sex, [12,14] and urban residence. [15,16]xual development and awareness implies that adolescents have to develop coping skills that would help them in the proper management and expression of their natural sexual feelings, [17] this is necessary particularly within the social and cultural context in which adolescents fi nd themselves. [18]Cognitive changes in the adolescents play a signifi cant part in the nature of sexuality.
Several risky sexual behaviors among students and adolescents have created a dilapidated environment that tends to eliminate a supposedly useful population.Painstaking studies have been conducted to evaluate the factors which are specifi cally responsible for this trend, [19,20] and it was observed that the current trend of sexual behaviors among young people could be linked to various customs, rapid urbanization, family background, peer pressure, economic situation, gender and educational background of parents. [19,20]though, HIV/AIDS and other related sexually transmitted diseases affect all age groups of the population, the most vulnerable groups are the young people, most especially females.Research has found that the impact is more among young females than young males. [21]In a study conducted in Cameroon, fi ndings showed that young people were mostly engaged in risky sexual behaviors. [22]Despite relatively high knowledge from different sources toward bringing about positive sexual changes, unprotected sexual practices remains a challenge among adolescents.
Having multiple sexual partners is a common sexual behavior among young people.Finding of a study conducted in Uganda [23,24] and the one conducted in Ibadan, Nigeria [25] proved that gender and religion were major predictors of multiple sexual partners among youths.This present study, basically investigated the sociodemographic factors as predictors of sexual behavior of secondary school students in Lagos State, Nigeria.

Research hypotheses
The following hypotheses were tested: 1. Age will not have a signifi cant effect on the sexual behavior of secondary school students in Lagos State.2. Gender will not have a signifi cant effect on the sexual behavior of secondary school students in Lagos State.3. Sociological factors of peer group, mass media, family and teachers will not have signifi cant prediction on sexual behavior of secondary school students in Lagos State.

Sample and instrumentation
The descriptive survey design was used for the study; the population comprised 2720 students as respondents, randomly selected from 17 secondary schools comprising of both junior and senior schools in Lagos State.The instrument used for the study was a selfdeveloped structured questionnaire, validated by experts in the fi eld of health promotion and education evaluation.The instrument was pretested using 20 students from another school in Lagos that did not form part of the study.The pretest result that was analyzed using Pearson product moment correlation coeffi cient (PPMC) showed no ambiguities in the instrument.The response format for the questionnaire was strongly agreed (SA), Agreed (A) Disagreed (D) and Strongly Disagreed (SD).Items generated on the questionnaire relating to sexual behavior include discussion about sex, engagement in sexual practices, and sexual-media relationship/information among others.The response format on the questionnaire was coded to allow for easy analysis.The following code was allocated to the responses.
• Strongly agreed (SA) (4) The sociological factors used in this study comprised peer pressure, mass-media, family and teachers infl uence.The data was collected using a questionnaire titled youth social factor behavior questionnaire.Four items were generated on the variables each, and they were validated by experts and its reliability determined with the use of PPMC that obtained a fi nal result of 0.78.

Data collection and analysis
The instrument was administered to the respondents by the researchers and the research assistants.2720 questionnaires were administered in total; the questionnaires were administered using purposive sampling technique, because the main objective of the researchers was to get directly to the set of student population whom are vulnerable to negative sexual behavior.Ethical permission was also granted by the ethical committee of each of the schools involved in the study.The questionnaire had a brief introduction to it which included the consent of the respondents, to allow them respond and understand the essence of the study after which all participants gave their voluntary consent.
The completed questionnaires were collated, coded and analyzed using both descriptive and inferential statistics.Descriptive statistics of frequency counts, percentages, means, standard deviation were used to analyze the Section A part of the questionnaires which dealt with the bio-data of the respondents while inferential statistics of PPMC, multiple regression, t-test and ANOVA were used to test the hypotheses.All the hypotheses were tested at 0.05 level of signifi cance.

RESULTS
Table 1 above shows the names of the schools of the respondents.
A breakdown of the fi gures as shown below indicates that 171 (6.3%) of the respondents were selected from the Apostolic Church Grammar School, 164 (6.0%) respondents were selected each from Dolphin high School, Epe Grammar School respectively.More so, 163 (6.0%) respondents were selected each from Government College, Kosofe College and Badagry Grammar school respectively.Similarly, 166 (6.1%) respondents were selected from Clegg High School, 154 (5.6%) respondents from Festac Girls Secondary School and 159 (5.8%) from Otto-Awori Secondary School.In the same vein, 165 (6.1%) respondents were selected each from Igando Community High School and Eric Moore High School respectively while 162 (6.0%) respondents were selected each from Iba Housing Estate Secondary School and Epe Girls High respectively.Equally, 167 (6.2%) respondents were selected from Isale Eko Grammar School, 169 (6.2%) from Gbaja boys High School, 157 (5.8%) from Abesan High School and lastly, 106 (3.9%) respondents were selected from Amuwo-Odofi n Secondary School.

Hypothesis 1
Age will not have a signifi cant effect on the sexual behavior of secondary school students in Lagos State.
Table 4 shows that F (3, 2350) observed indicating the effect of age on sexual behavior is 72.9 P < 0.05.Since the P < 0.05, the null hypothesis is therefore rejected.The results connotes that there is a signifi cant effect of age on the sexual behavior of secondary school students in Lagos State.

Hypothesis 2
Gender will not have a signifi cant effect on the sexual behavior of secondary school students in Lagos State.
Table 5 shows that t observed indicating the difference between male and female behavior is 6.8, P < 0.05.Since the P < 0.05, the null hypothesis is rejected.The result implies that there is a signifi cant effect of gender on the sexual behavior of secondary school students in Lagos State.
The results equally showed that the mean difference is higher among the male (11.2) students than that of the female students (11.2).

Hypothesis 3
Sociological factors of peer group, mass media, family and teachers infl uence will not have signifi cant prediction on sexual behavior of secondary school students in Lagos State.Table 6 shows that the multiple prediction coeffi cients between the sociological factors of peer group pressure, mass media, family and teachers infl uence on sexual behavior of secondary school students is 0.550.Estimated R 2 = 0.303 while adjusted R 2 = 0.302.This meant that sociological factors when taken together accounts for about 30% variation in sexual behavior of secondary school students.Further analysis on prediction of sociological factors on sexual behavior using regression ANOVA produced F (4.2394) 260.020,P < 0.05.Since P < 0.05 then the null hypotheses is rejected, this simply means that sociological factors of peer group pressure, media infl uence, family infl uence, and teachers infl uence predict sexual behavior signifi cantly at 0.05 alpha level.
It was further discovered as shown in Table 7 that peer group pressure contributed most (β = 0.28; t = 11.73;P < 0.05) to sexual behavior of secondary school students.Next to peer group pressure is teachers infl uence with (β = 0.20; t = 8.96; P < 0.05); followed by media infl uence with (β = 0.14; t = 6.66;P < 0.05); and lastly family infl uence contributed the least among others with (β = 0.056; t = 2.43; P < 0.05).All the factors however, contributed signifi cantly to sexual behavior of secondary school students.

DISCUSSION OF FINDINGS
The fi ndings of the study revealed that there is a signifi cant effect of age on the sexual behavior of secondary school students.It is apparent therefore that, the sexual behavior is higher among the students that are in the ages of 19-21 years and equally high in the age group of 16-18 years.Majority of the students that fell within these age groups are senior students who were matured for sexual activities.Their responses revealed that they have had sexual intercourse before, and colossal number of them has had sexual experience before 15 years.Some of them indicated that, they have not only experienced pregnancy, but had sex with >1 sexual partner.It is observed that the sexual behavior is a bit lower in the age group of 22 years and above.The reason may be attributed to high level of their maturity that had led them to being able to take positive decisions and exercise control on sexual matters while the sexual behaviors was least noticed in the age range of 13-15 years.The reason at that time could be as a result of the age bracket, which comprised the junior students who were not fully matured for sexual activities.Many of these students were yet to develop traits of secondary sexual characteristics that are physical evidences for sexual maturity.There is a similarity between this fi ndings and fi ndings of other studies that supported that age has a tremendous role to play in sexual behaviors. [12,14]  The result in the second hypothesis revealed that there is a signifi cant difference between the sexual behavior of male and female students.The above fi ndings proved that the sexual behavioral difference is higher among male students than female students.][21] Findings of another study gave a view that both gender and religion are very important factor in sexual behaviors among young people. [25]Results showed generally that all the four sociological factors signifi cantly predicted sexual behavior of secondary school students.The above fi nding is in agreement with another study that reported that young adults in a deliberate fostering of ignorance through false teachings by peers and its practice inhibits the natural expression of sex impulse which ultimately leads to such health problems like unwanted pregnancies and early childbearing of sex-related crimes. [26]What peers often think have a greater infl uence on sexual and other risk-taking behaviors than the opinions of the parents and older adults.Research conducted revealed that, youths major source of information includes peer pressure, which was generally reported in their fi ndings. [27]Again youths believed it is easier and safer to discuss personal problems and sexual matters with friends than their parents.

CONCLUSION
This study was conducted to evaluate the sociodemographic factors that serve as predictors of sexual behaviors of secondary school students in Lagos state, Nigeria.Findings revealed that age, gender, sociological factors of peer group pressure, media infl uence, family infl uence, and teachers infl uence could predict sexual behavior signifi cantly.Since sexuality is part of human life, it is therefore recommended that sexual risk behaviors and related health problems among youth should be reduced.In addition, schools and other youth-serving organizations can help young people adopt lifelong attitudes and behaviors that support their health and well-being, which is capable of reducing their risk for sexually transmitted infections and unwanted pregnancy.
central and explicitly debated issue in mainstream cultural confl icts and political debates over values and citizenship.The fear aroused by the HIV/AIDS epidemic was more than simply concern about a new and possibly incurable disease; it also underlined our uncertainty about contemporary moral International Journal of Medicine and Public Health | Apr-Jun 2015 | Vol 5 | Issue 2 International Journal of Medicine and Public Health | Apr-Jun 2015 | Vol 5 | Issue 2