Examining How Behaviour Change Communication Has Been Used In Influencing the Knowledge, Attitude and Practice of Risky Sexual Behaviors among Kenyan Youth: A Case of Undergraduate Students of Kenyatta University

Abstract

The objective of the study was to examine how behaviour change communication interventions have been used in influencing the knowledge, attitude and practice of risky sexual behaviors by Kenyan youth. The study was guided by specific objectives including exploring the role of communication interventions, identifying effective participatory campaigns and determining how social media influences risky sexual behaviour. This study is based on the Health Belief Model (HBM) which conceptualizes preventive health behavior as a function of perceived severity of illness, perceived susceptibility to illness, perceived benefits for taking a health action, and perceived barriers to engaging in a health action. The study used a descriptive approach where the questionnaire was used for data collection. The overall target population for the primary data was 63 nursing students and 133 students from the school of public health and human science. The data was analyzed with the use of descriptive statistics such as mean, and percentage. Inferential such as regression analysis was conducted to check the factors influencing risky sexual behaviour. The findings indicate that the computed R for this model was 0.613 indicating a strong relationship between communication intervention, participatory campaigns and social media influence on risky sexual behaviour among students at Kenyatta University. The computed p-value was equal to 0.000 which is less than the critical value of 0.05, which implied that the model is adequate for examining the relationship between communication intervention, participatory campaigns and social media influence risky sexual behaviour among students at Kenyatta University. The study recommends that stakeholders advocating for safe sex should initiate more communication interventions on the causes of risky sexual behaviour. The intervention should not only be done in colleges rather to a wider youth population. Finally, the study recommends that whereas social media can be seen as a catalyst to risky sexual behaviour, it can also be used for the outreach process. The communication interventions on safe sex can be initiated through social media as most youths are active on social media.