Kupoluyi Joseph Ayodeji
Department of Demography and Social Statistics, Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Nigeria.
PLoS One. 2025 Apr 29;20(4):e0321783. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0321783. eCollection 2025.
Premarital sexual intercourse (PSI) predisposes never-married women to unwanted pregnancy, abortion, sexually transmitted infections, HIV/AIDS, and high rates of school dropout. This study examines changes and predictors of PSI among never-married women (15-24) in Nigeria.
The study used a 15-year duration of three wave's pooled individual recode (IR) dataset of the Nigeria Demographic and Health Surveys (NDHS) of 2008, 2013, and 2018. A weighted sample size of 23,446 never-married young women was analysed using frequency tables, charts, and multilevel binary logistic regression.
The prevalence of PSI among never-married women (15-24) over the 15-year duration of 3 waves of NDHS datasets was 31.3% [95%CI: 30.3, 32.3] in Nigeria. Prevalence of PSI steadily decreased from 36.8% in 2008 to 31.7% in 2013 and 26.6% in 2018. A 5-year percentage change between 2008 and 2013 showed that PSI declined by 13.2%, 16.2% between 2013 and 2018, and 27.7% over 10 years (2008-2018). Never-married women aged 20-24 had higher odds (OR= 7.8, 95%CI [6.9, 8.8], p < 0.001) of engaging in PSI than those aged 15-19. The community's knowledge of modern methods, literacy level, socio-economic status, education, religion, region of residence, employment status, and exposure to mass media were strongly associated with PSI. The intra-class correlation value of 10.1% indicates that contextual factors significantly explained the variations in PSI between clusters. The proportional change in variance of 41.3% explained the variability in the odds of PSI explained by each model with more terms.
This study established a steady decrease in the prevalence of PSI among never-married women (15-24) over the 15-year duration of 3 waves of NDHS datasets (2008, 2013, and 2018). Thus, we conclude that concerted efforts are required to empower young women to contribute to a further reduction in PSI to improve the general national health status of women and to ensure progress towards achieving a reduction in early pregnancies among unmarried women in Nigeria.
婚前性行为使未婚女性面临意外怀孕、堕胎、性传播感染、艾滋病毒/艾滋病以及高辍学率等风险。本研究调查了尼日利亚未婚女性（15 - 24岁）婚前性行为的变化情况及其预测因素。
该研究使用了2008年、2013年和2018年尼日利亚人口与健康调查（NDHS）三轮汇总的个体记录（IR）数据集，时长为15年。对23446名未婚年轻女性的加权样本进行了分析，采用了频率表、图表和多水平二元逻辑回归分析方法。
在NDHS数据集的三轮调查中，为期15年的时间里，尼日利亚未婚女性（15 - 24岁）婚前性行为的患病率为31.3%[95%置信区间：30.3, 32.3]。婚前性行为的患病率从2008年的36.8%稳步下降至2013年的31.7%，并在2018年降至26.6%。2008年至2013年的5年百分比变化显示，婚前性行为下降了13.2%，2013年至2018年下降了16.2%，10年（2008 - 2018年）间下降了27.7%。20 - 24岁的未婚女性进行婚前性行为的几率（比值比=7.8，95%置信区间[6.9, 8.8]，p<0.001）高于15 - 19岁的未婚女性。社区对现代方法的了解、识字水平、社会经济地位、教育程度、宗教信仰、居住地区、就业状况以及接触大众媒体的情况与婚前性行为密切相关。组内相关系数值为10.1%，表明背景因素显著解释了各群组间婚前性行为的差异。方差比例变化41.3%解释了每个包含更多项的模型所解释的婚前性行为几率的变异性。
本研究证实，在NDHS数据集的三轮调查（2008年、2013年和2018年）为期15年的时间里，未婚女性（15 - 24岁）婚前性行为的患病率稳步下降。因此，我们得出结论，需要共同努力增强年轻女性的能力，以进一步降低婚前性行为，改善女性的总体国民健康状况，并确保在尼日利亚朝着降低未婚女性早孕率的目标取得进展。
