Sexually Transmitted Infections Treatment Seeking Behaviour and Associated Factors among Symptomatic Students in Hawassa Teacher’s education Colllege, South Ethiopia:A cross sectional study

Background: Sexually transmitted infections (STIs) pose a significant public health challenge globally, impacting quality of life and leading to severe illness and mortality. While treatment-seeking behavior is critical for disease prevention and management, there is limited data on this behavior and its influencing factors in the study area. Objective: To evaluate treatment-seeking behavior and associated factors for STIs among symptomatic students at Hawassa Teachers Education College, Southern Ethiopia. Methods: An institution-based cross-sectional study design was employed, in volving 415 students selected through simple random sampling. Data were entered using Epi-data version 3.1 and analyzed with Statistical Package for Social Science version 25. Bivariate and multivariable binary logistic regression analyses were conducted to identify variables significantly associated with the outcome, using Adjusted Odds Ratios (AOR) and 95% Confidence Intervals (CI). A p-value of ≤ 0.05 was considered statistically significant. Results: The prevalence of treatment-seeking behavior was 47.2% (95% CI: 42.3 52.2). Factors significantly associated with treatment-seeking behavior included: female sex (AOR: 0.16, 95% CI: 0.06-0.46), students earning pocket money of 1501-2000 birr (AOR: 3.22, 95% CI: 1.19-8.66), preference for self-treatment (AOR: 0.20, 95% CI: 0.07-0.61), comfort in expressing symptoms to health professionals (AOR: 2.76, 95% CI: 1.01-7.59), and poor knowledge of STIs (AOR: 0.32, 95% CI: 0.11-0.92). Conclusion: The prevalence of treatment-seeking behavior among students was low. Factors such as sex, financial resources, perception of disease burden, privacy concerns, and STI knowledge were significantly associated with treatment-seeking behavior. It is recommended to discourage self-treatment and embarrassment while enhancing participants’ knowledge about STIs.