Desmennu Adeyimika Titilayo, Titiloye Musibau Ayoade, Owoaje Eme Theodora
Department of Health promotion and Education, FAculty of Public Health, University of Ibadan.
Department of Community Medicine, College of Medicine, university of Ibadan.
Afr Health Sci. 2018 Mar;18(1):180-187. doi: 10.4314/ahs.v18i1.23.
Street youths are faced with a number of health challenges that could be linked to their exposure to the risk elements, accessing medical care including motivation and /or ignorance to utilise available health care.
This qualitative study therefore aimed at determining the behavioural risks for sexually transmitted infections (STIs) and health seeking behaviour of street youths in Ibadan.
Sixteen focus group discussion (FGD) sessions were conducted among 160 street youths aged between 15-24 years.
The result showed that most of the respondents had low perception of risk of contracting STIs in spite of their risky behaviours which included multiple sexual partnering, sharing of personal effects, malnourishment and sexual harassment. Most of the street youth could not identify the various types however; Gonorrhea and HIV were commonly mentioned by them. The major treatment regimen for STIs was traditional remedies and drugs obtained from patent medicine vendors. Traditional remedies were preferred by most of the participants and considered to be more effective.
Majority of the street youths were sexually active, engaged in high risk sexual behaviours and had inappropriately treated sexually transmitted infections. Development of risk reduction and appropriate sexual health interventions targeted at prevention and appropriate treatment is recommended.
街头青少年面临诸多健康挑战，这些挑战可能与他们接触风险因素、获得医疗服务（包括利用现有医疗服务的动机和/或无知）有关。
因此，这项定性研究旨在确定伊巴丹街头青少年的性传播感染行为风险和寻求健康行为。
对160名年龄在15至24岁之间的街头青少年进行了16次焦点小组讨论。
结果显示，尽管大多数受访者存在包括多个性伴侣、共用个人物品、营养不良和性骚扰等危险行为，但他们对感染性传播感染风险的认知较低。然而，大多数街头青少年无法识别各种性传播感染类型；他们通常提到淋病和艾滋病毒。性传播感染的主要治疗方法是传统疗法和从成药小贩处获得的药物。大多数参与者更喜欢传统疗法，并认为其更有效。
大多数街头青少年性活跃，从事高风险性行为，且对性传播感染的治疗不当。建议制定以预防和适当治疗为目标的降低风险和适当的性健康干预措施。
