Contraceptive knowledge among first year students of Science, Commerce and Arts streams of University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka.

Abstract

Introduction: Because of biological, psychological and social changes during puberty, youth is a period characterised of impulsiveness and risk-taking which results in risky sexual behaviours. Therefore, there is a timely need to assess the knowledge about contraception and sexually transmitted infections at the University entrance. Objectives: Assess the contraceptive and STI knowledge among the first-year undergraduates of Science, Commerce, Arts streams of University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka. Methods: A descriptive cross-sectional study was carried by taking the study population as first year undergraduates from Science, Commerce, Arts by distributing a questionnaire as a Google form and randomly selected 128 responses from each stream to get the sample size of 384, they were analysed using R software. Kruskal- Wallis test was used for comparison of knowledge. Results: 384 respondents were included in the analysis. 60% were males and mean age was 21.45 years. Median contraceptive knowledge and STI knowledge of different faculties were significantly different (p<0.05). In gender-wise comparison, marks for both contraceptive and STI knowledge was higher in males than females. But only median STI knowledge was significantly higher in males (p<0.05). Conclusions: 61% of the participants had a good knowledge regarding contraception. There was a median knowledge difference between Science, Commerce and Arts streams. 68% of the participants had a good knowledge regarding STI. But there was no significant median difference between Arts and Commerce streams.