Mental Health And Risky Sexual Behaviour Among University Of Ghana Students

ABSTRACT Background: Young people aged 10-24 years form the larger proportion of Ghana‟s population; with the majority being sexually active, and are exposed to adverse health outcomes. Among the young age group, undergraduate students in the university are faced with various challenges on campus including stress, risky sexual behaviour and use of drugs. Although a major public health concern, only few studies have examined mental health as a catalyst to risky sexual behaviour among young people. Objective: To determine the association between mental health and risky sexual behaviour among University of Ghana students. Methods: This was a cross-sectional study using quantitative method. A selfadministered questionnaire was used to collect data on demographic characteristics, level of knowledge on mental health and risky sexual behaviour of participants‟. The Beck‟s Depression Inventory tool was adapted to assess the mental health status of the students. A multi-stage stratified sampling procedure was used to select 682 students from the University of Ghana, main campus. A simple random sampling technique with probability proportional to size was used in the sampling process, to compute for the number of students to be used. 9 out of 13 halls were randomly selected and this was followed by a systematic selection of room numbers of the selected halls. Sampling interval was computed and every 5th room was selected for each hall. Also, one student was chosen at random from selected rooms.