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Age at menarche, menstrual patterns, sexual health knowledge, attitudes and premarital sexual partners of female athletes in Ibadan, Nigeria.

OBJECTIVE
The study aimed to find out age at menarche, menstrual patterns, attitudes and premarital sexual partners of female athletes in Ibadan Nigeria.


METHOD
The study adopted descriptive cross sectional survey design involving 250 female athletes training or camping under Oyo State Sports Council, Ibadan, Nigeria. The data collection tool was a self-developed validated questionnaire. Data was analyzed using SPSS package.


RESULTS
Majority (44.0%) had menarche between 12-13 years, (71.6%) had regular menstrual period, more than 50% of the study participants had correct knowledge of all sexual health knowledge items, more than 50% of the responses to items on attitude suggested they were not favourably disposed to premarital sex. However, 72.4% had premarital sex with the person they wanted to marry, 44.0% with male athletes, 28.0% with coaches and 23.1% with other staff of the sports council.


CONCLUSION
Majority of the study participants had sexual health knowledge but sizeable proportion of the study participants also had attitudes that favour premarital sex and had different types of sexual partners. There is therefore an urgent need for health education of the female athletes especially against sexually transmitted infections including HIV/AIDS and education of coaches and sports officials of the need to serve as role models in the area of sexuality to athletes.