The relationship between number of sexual partners and the risk of contracting STIs among women of reproductive ages in Uganda

The majority of women in Uganda are sexually active, yet many do not take appropriate precautions to prevent the spread of sexually transmitted infections. This paper discusses the factors associated with having had an STI during the past year for women of reproductive ages 15-49 years. Women may be prone to contracting STIs because of the behavior of their partners; however they too may be engaging in risky sexual behavior which could lead to this vice. Contracting STIs and worse still HIV could ultimately lead to both immediate and long-term negative consequences. Using data from the most recent Uganda Demographic and health Survey, a binary logistic regression is fitted to the data to examine the association between a number of sex partners and risk of contracting an STI in the year preceding the survey. In the model we also control for a number socioeconomic factors and age of the respondent. The findings show that the risk of contracting STIs were least in Northern region of Uganda compared to Kampala and other regions of the country. The findings sow that the odds of contracting STIs varied significantly with age and income. As expected, married and formerly married exhibited higher odds of contracting STIs compared to the unmarried. Having more than one partner significantly increased the odds of contracting an STI.