Assessment of knowledge, attitude, and practice of sexual and reproductive health and Rights and associated factors among Haramaya University students, College of Health and Medical Sciences, Eastern Ethiopia

Abstract

Introduction: Young peoples’ knowledge on sexual and reproductive health rights (SRHRs) is essential in exercising these rights. But little is known about level of knowledge, attitude, and practice of sexual and reproductive health rights s with their important predictors in the study area, therefore this study was done to fill this information gap. Methods: institutional based cross-sectional study was employed among 419 study participants selected by simple random sampling method from Haramaya University, College of health and medical science`s regular students from November 15 to December 15 2023. Data were collected through self-administered questionnaires from selected departments. Data entry were performed through epidata 3.1 and transformed to STATA 17 for statistical analysis. Bivariate and multivariate logistic regression was done to assess the association of factors with knowledge of sexual and reproductive health rights. P-value of 0.05 were used to determine statistical significance of the variables. Results: among the total of 398 respondents with the response rate of 95%, the mean knowledge score for the participants was 7.39 (SD= 2.74) about 69.6% of students were knowledgeable, 71.6% of students had favorable attitude and 68.8% of the students had good practice. Binary logistic regression was used to compute Crude Odds Ratio, with its 95% confidence interval to test the associations between dependent and independent variables. Then variables found to be with P<0.2 in the bivariate analysis was taken as candidate for multivariate logistic regression analysis. Finally the following factors were found to predictors of knowledge of sexual and reproductive health and rights. Students aged 25 and above are 4.02 AOR: 4.02, 95% CI (1.26-12.82) times higher in having adequate knowledge as compared to those students aged ≤19 years. Students who had ever discussed sexual and reproductive health with family are 4.42 AOR: 4.42, 95% CI (2.19-8.92) times higher in having adequate knowledge when compared to those who had no discussion. Students whose study year is 4th year and above had 2.51 AOR: 2.51, 95% CI (1.04-6.05) times higher knowledge about sexual and reproductive health when compared to first year students. Students whose father is a government employee are 5.36 AOR: 5.36, 95% CI (2.70-10.64) times higher in having adequate knowledge when compared to those students whose fathers are farmers. The P-value of less than 0.05 were used to determine statistical significance. Conclusion: The study finding shows that knowledge, attitude and practice of sexual and reproductive health rights were low relative literatures. Factors: age, year of study, fathers job and discussion are associated significantly with knowledge of sexual and reproductive health rights