Sexual behaviour and contraceptive practice of future doctors in Southwest Nigeria

The sexual behaviour and contraceptive practice of 498 clinical students of a randomly selected medical college in Southwest Nigeria was studied in June 2003. More than two-thirds (67.5%) of the students had (ever had) sexual intercourse while 49.8% of them had ever used contraception. Only 26.1% of the 119 sexually active students used contraception during their last sexual intercourse. The most common contraceptive methods ever used by the students were the condom (54.6%) and rhythm method (39.5%) though a third of them incorrectly identified the limits of the fertile period. Contraception for single sexually active students was disapproved by 11.2% of the participants while 9.8% of them regarded avoidance of HIV patients in the hospital as a preventive measure against HIV infection. This survey reinforces the need for integration of a suitable sexuality course into our medical undergraduate curriculum in order to facilitate the delivery of reproductive health programmes in the future.