O cuidado com a saúde sexual de jovens universitários em tempos de Infecções Sexualmente Transmissíveis

Abstract

This study aimed to analyze the sexual health care of students of a public university facing Sexually Transmitted Infections. And as specific objectives: characterize the profile of students of a public university; evaluate students' sexual health care practices and compare sexual health care by student gender. This is a descriptive, cross-sectional study with a quantitative approach, integrated with the project “Sexuality and vulnerability of young people in times of sexually transmitted infections”. The research field was a public university in the city of Rio de Janeiro. The participants were the college students. Inclusion criteria were: being between 18 and 29 years old and with active enrollment in the educational institution. Participants who were not sexually active were excluded. The sample consisted of 601 students. The data collection instrument used was a questionnaire containing 60 questions. Eight variables related to sociodemographic profile were used, four related to knowledge about STI and 22 related to sexual health care practices, two specific for females and one for males. The data were organized in an Excel 2016 spreadsheet and the analyzes performed with the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) software. Uni and bivariate descriptive analyzes and chi-square test were applied to compare the variables. All ethical aspects were respected, that is, the research was previously approved by the CEP of the research host institution, and the participants signed the Informed Consent Form. In the findings, it can be seen that the students start their sexual practices later than the male students, tend to seek more health services, and had fewer sexual partners throughout life and in the same period. Male students, however, reported safer sexual practices as they use condoms more often in sexual relations with steady partners and also with casual partners demonstrating care about sexual health. The sexual practices of university students are similar, and no significant differences are verified between the sexes in sexual health care.