INFORMATION SOURCES AND PREMARITAL SEX AMONG TEENAGERS IN UYO URBAN COMMUNITIES OF AKWA IBOM STATE, NIGERIA

The study was carried out to investigate the influence of informationsources on premarital sex amongst teenagers in Uyo urban communitiesof Akwa Ibom State, Nigeria. The impact of older siblings' sexualconversations, peer group pressure and social media images ofpremarital sex were investigated. Three objectives, research questionsand corresponding null hypotheses guided the study. Expost factoresearch design was used from a population of 4791 Senior Secondarytwo (SS2) students, a sample size of 364 (52 samples in each of the sevenout of 14 public secondary schools in Uyo) was drawn through thestratified random sampling technique using the Krejie and Morgan(1970) sample size determination table. A validated instrument,Information Sources and Premarital Sex Questionnaire (LSPSQ) with areliability index of .84 was used to gather data for the study. Simple LinearRegression was used to analyze data collected at .05 alpha level, Resultsrevealed a significant influence of older siblings'" sexual conversations,peer group pressure and social media images as information sourcespredisposing teenagers to premarital sex in Uyo urban communities ofAkwa Ibom State, Nigeria. It was recommended among other things thatolder siblings" should be discouraged by parents, health educators andreligious leaders not to generate sexual conversations that could misleadtheir younger ones into engaging in premarital sex. Teenagers shouldrestrict themselves from promiscuous friends; and parents, teachers andreligious leaders should educate teenagers on the dangers of using socialmedia to download pornographic materials which could make them copythe sexual behaviour of characters they see on the internet.