Coital frequency and condom use in age-disparate partnerships involving women aged 15 to 24: evidence from a cross-sectional study in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa.

Content Provider	Europe PMC
Author	George, Gavin Maughan-Brown, Brendan Beckett, Sean Evans, Meredith Cawood, Cherie Khanyile, David Govender, Kaymarlin Kharsany, Ayesha BM
Copyright Year	2019
Abstract	ObjectiveThis study examines the role of age-disparate partnerships on young women’s HIV risk by investigating coital frequency and condom use within age-disparate partnerships involving women aged 15 to 24.DesignA community-based, cross-sectional study was conducted.SettingParticipants were randomly selected using a two-stage random sampling method in uMgungundlovu district, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, between June 2014 and June 2015.ParticipantsA total of 1306 15–24-year-old women in an ongoing heterosexual partnership were included in the analysis. Participants had to be a resident in the area for 12 months, and able to provide informed consent and speak one of the local languages (Zulu or English).Primary and secondary outcome measuresSexual frequency was assessed by asking participants how many times they had sex with each partner in the past 12 months. The degree of condomless sex within partnerships was assessed in the survey by asking participants how often they used a condom with their partners.ResultsAge-disparate partnerships were associated with a higher order category (once, 2–5, 6–10, 11–20, >20) of coital frequency (adjusted OR (aOR) 1.32, p<0.05, 95% CI 1.02 to 1.71) and with sex on more than 10 occasions (aOR 1.48, p<0.01, 95% CI 1.12 to 1.96) compared with age-similar partnerships. Age-disparate partnerships were also more likely to involve sex on more than 10 occasions with inconsistent condom use (aOR 1.43, p<0.05, 95% CI 1.04 to 1.96) in the previous 12 months.ConclusionThe finding that increased sexual activity is positively associated with age-disparate partnerships adds to the evidence that age-disparate partnerships pose greater HIV risk for young women. Our study results indicate that interventions to reduce risky sexual behaviour within age-disparate partnerships remain relevant to reducing the high HIV incidence rates among adolescent girls and young women.
Journal	BMJ Open
Volume Number	9
PubMed Central reference number	PMC6429968
Issue Number	3
PubMed reference number	30852536
e-ISSN	20446055
DOI	10.1136/bmjopen-2018-024362
Language	English
Publisher	BMJ Publishing Group
Publisher Date	2019-03-09
Publisher Place	London
Access Restriction	Open
Rights License	This is an open access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited, appropriate credit is given, any changes made indicated, and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/. © Author(s) (or their employer(s)) 2019. Re-use permitted under CC BY-NC. No commercial re-use. See rights and permissions. Published by BMJ.
Subject Keyword	age-disparate sex coital frequency HIV south africa risky sexual behaviour condoms
Content Type	Text
Resource Type	Article
Subject	Medicine