Promoting sexual abstinence intention among female university students: A quasi-experimental study

The effectiveness of a theory-based educational intervention on intension for sexual abstinence among female university students was evaluated.

Female students were recruited from humanity sciences department through cluster sampling. Educational intervention was applied for four 90-min sessions and by application of cognitive theories during 4 weeks.

One hundred and nine female students with mean age of 20.74 ± 1.57 years took part in the study. Despite the similarity of two groups of intervention (n = 53) and control (n = 59) at baseline, there were significant differences between the two groups in mean scores of the variables, knowledge (4.62 ± 1.38 vs. 3.53 ± 1.61), perceived susceptibility (14.05 ± 1.51 vs. 12.37 ± 2.11), and perceived benefits (28.41 ± 2.14 vs. 27.51 ± 3.05), at follow-up time after 3 months (P < 0.05). Additionally, these variables were observed with improvement over 3 months in the intervention group (P < 0.05). However, this study showed no significant effect on the behavior intention and self-efficacy.

This study showed that educational intervention could improve knowledge, perceived benefits, and self-efficacy of the female students regarding HIV/AIDS.