Attitude towards Receiving Information on Sexual Relationship among Female Secondary Students in Ebonyi State, Nigeria

Abstract

Adolescent girls who are mostly found in secondary schools lack formal programme of instruction on sexual relationship education. The pieces of information they get concerning sexual relationship through few selected school subjects are not enough to equip them with comprehensive sexual relationship information. As a result, the young girls resort to information from their community, friends, relatives, amongst others. The information from the sources may be defective and uncensored thereby affecting the girls’ sexual attitude and behaviour. Establishing attitude of the girls on sexual relationship information may be a precursor to mounting intervention programmes to correct misinformation and misconception capable of negatively affecting the girls’ sexual health. The purpose was to determine attitude towards receiving information on sexual relationship among female secondary students in Ebonyi State, Nigeria. The cross-sectional survey research design was used to study1080 female students. The instrument for data collection was a self-structured questionnaire which had a reliability of r = 0.90. The results of the study showed that, attitude of the female secondary school students towards receiving information on sexual relationship was positive. Class level of the female secondary students had significant influence on their attitude towards information on sexual relationship. The study concluded that female secondary students in Ebonyi state, Nigeria indicated interest in receiving information on sexual relationship and recommended among others, that there is urgent need for coherent sexual relationship education intervention by schools, government, policy makers and NGOs in order to promote the adoption of sexual health behaviours during relationship among young girls.

Keywords: Attitude, female secondary students, information, sexual relationship