Recent trends in sexual behavior, demonstrated in most countries, continue to indicate that more people are adopting safer sexual behaviors. However, there are signs of an increase in risky sexual behaviors in several countries. This study aimed to assess sexual behaviors and associated factors among youths in Nekemte town, East Wollega, Ethiopia in A community-based cross sectional study was conducted using a self-administered questionnaire.
Almost half of the respondents, High proportions of youths were practicing sexual intercourse. Targeting those identified associated factors in future intervention plan would improve the sexual behaviors of youths.
This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Data Availability: All relevant data are within the manuscript and its Supporting Information files. Competing interests: The author has declared that no competing interests exist. Youths are defined as those belonging to the age group of 15 to 24 years.
Many important life events and health-damaging behaviors start during the youth years. As a result, youth is a time of both risk and opportunity. The period between the initiation of sexual activity and marriage is often a time of sexual experimentation and may involve risky behaviors [ 1 , 2 , 3 ]. Young people are at the center of the global AIDS epidemic and the 1. The expression of the pandemic in the country is primarily young, with the majority of the victims aged 15β24 years [ 8 , 9 , 10 ].
Risky sexual behavior is defined as unprotected vaginal, oral or anal intercourse. Young people who initiate sexual intercourse at an early age face a higher risk of becoming pregnant or contracting an STI than young people who delay the initiation of sexual activity [ 3 , 11 ].
