Drug Abuse and Sex a Twist: A Contributing Factor for HIV/STIs Infections among University Students | Insight Medical Publishing

Background: Having multiple sexual partners is an important risk factor in acquiring HIV infection. Those who use drugs have tendency of having multiple sexual partners. Drug abuse and risky sexual behavior which appears to be significantly and consistently related to increase in number of partners for all race/gender groups was studied. Objective: To determine the prevalence of drug use among Namibian University students aged 19-25 and examine the association between drug use and having multiple sexual partners. Materials and methods: Data was collected using self-completed questionnaires for quantitative cross-sectional survey among students in classes selected through simple random sampling in each stratum (University Campus). Relationship between independent variables (Age, Gender, Drug use (including Alcohol) and HIV/STI Risk perception) and dependent variable (multiple sexual partners) was measured using multivariate model of logistic regression analysis. Results: Alcohol was the most commonly use substance among the students with 29.7% (99/333) of them having used alcohol one or more days within the last 30 days. Strong and significant positive association was found between having multiple sexual partners the use of alcohol one or more days in the last 30 days among the students which was age and sex dependent. Conclusion: More emphasis should be laid on the importance of control of substance of abuse like alcohol during sexual reproductive counselling process, particularly when dealing with young people. This will abate the rate of HIV/STIs infection among the youth.