The role of sexual behavior on HIV/AIDS prevention: a case of secondary school students in Iringa municipal

In Tanzania, pre-marital sexual practice among school students is not allowed and abstinence is encouraged. Rules and regulations prohibit students to engage in sexual affairs. Yet students are practising sexual intercourse and new cases of HIV infection are reported every year. This study addressed the reasons why there have been little changes in sexual behaviours towards HIV/AIDS prevention. Cross-sectional study design was used to collect data and analyzed using STATA software. Statistical procedures were used to determine the optimal number of secondary schools to be sampled as 8. Two stage sampling procedure was used to determine the sampled students as 485. The findings show that, 54.6% students had ever practiced sexual intercourse, female students tend to practice more compared to male students. Moreover 78.5% had done sex more than two days from the day of interview. Also, the difference between level of education attended and abstinence were observed. Advanced level students tend to abstain more compared to ordinary level students. About 84% of the students used condoms, male students were more likely to use condoms compared to female students. Among the factors that impede students from practicing safe sex include, low education on HIV/AIDS related matters, which was mentioned by 69.3%, followed by low accessibility to condoms (64.3%) and 62.9% of the students reported that the use of drugs and alcohol bars them from practicing safe sex. The study concludes that massive education campaign with regard to HIV/AIDS related matters should be mounted in secondary schools.