Sexual and reproductive health awareness and practices among the deaf/speech-impaired secondary school students in two cities in Nigeria

Abstract

Background: The World Health Organization estimates that 5% of the world’s population has disabling hearing impairment. This subpopulation experiences significant healthcare barriers for various reasons including poor communication and risk of embarrassment among others.
Objectives: This study was conducted to investigate the awareness, sexual abuse, and the behavioral risk factors for HIV and other Sexually Transmitted Infections among Deaf secondary school students in two cities in Nigeria.
Methods: A cross sectional survey was carried out among the Deaf students in two government special schools in Akure and Calabar. All 112 consenting students were recruited into the study. Data analysis was carried out using GraphPad prism software and statistical significance was set at p<0.05.
Results: A total of 112 Deaf students participated in the study (53males and 59 females), with mean age of 17.8years (17.1 years for males and 18.4 years for females). Majority (n=91; 81.2%) had ever had sex (mean age at sexual debut 11 years), while over a third of them (35.7%) had been raped: 57. 7% of females and 11.3% of males. A vast majority of the girls (74%) had exchanged sex for money or gifts. Furthermore, 24.4% of the females had been pregnant with 47% of the pregnancies ending in induced abortions. Only 20 (18%) of the students knew how to protect themselves from sexually transmitted infections.
Conclusions: There was poor awareness of sexual and reproductive health issues and high rates of high-risk sexual behaviors and sexual abuse among the Deaf sub-population in these secondary schools. This calls for urgent designing of appropriate awareness interventions for this group of vulnerable people. This is key to achieving the SDG goal of leaving no one behind.