Sexual Activity and Emergency Contraception among Female Students in the University of Rwanda

Background: Less is known about sexual activity, unwanted pregnancy rate, and emergency contraception decision-making among female students in Rwandan Higher Education. By gathering such information, we are better able to develop preventive efforts that can reduce the likelihood of such incidents occurring over the students’ lifespan. The study explores sexual activity and describes how this group learns about, feels about and practices contraception in general with emphasis on emergency contraception (EC).
Methods: 296 undergraduate female students, aged 18-25 years old, registered in the University of Rwanda, Huye campus (former NUR-National University of Rwanda) during the academic year 2013-2014, were randomly recruited to complete a structured self-administrated questionnaire.
Results: The toll of sexually active students floated between 29% and 49%. Among them 5% agreed having been involved in unwanted sex, 3% had forced sex and 2% carried unintended pregnancy. The majority showed positive attitudes towards EC (67%), but less than half had adequate knowledge about EC (47.64%) and only 5.4% used EC.
Conclusion: More than half of UR female students could be sexually active and the risk of getting unintended pregnancy is not negligible. There is need to mount proper strategies to largely disseminate information about EC, not for encouraging sex practices among students but to prevent unwanted pregnancy and correlated unsafe abortions, maternal morbidity or class drops out.