Low Rate of Condom Use among Sexually Active Youths of Iran: A Review Study

Background and Aim: Condom use is critical for the health of sexually active people, and yet many sexually active youths may fail to use condoms consistently. We aimed to identify rate of condom use among unmarried and sexually active youths in Iran through a review study.Methods: Review of literature was performed through extensive searching in ISI, PubMed, Scopus, and Google Scholar databases. The keywords that were used for searching were; sexual, condom, extramarital, Unmarried, illegal sex, youth, young, adolescents, teens, teenagers. We transferred found articles to the End Note software by two authors while supervised by a third person.Results: Among the 1036 articles surveyed, 42 met inclusion criteria finally. Findings showed that 43%-84% of illegally sexually active boys and girls in Iran did not use condom, at least regularly in their sexual contacts. Younger age at sexual debut, having one lifetime sexual partner and poor HIV knowledge were significant predictors of inconsistent condom use .The reason frequently chosen for inconsistent condom use was that it is not accessible . However, self-efficacy, gender, attitude towards HIV, knowing infected HIV person and alcohol or stimulant(s) used before sexual contact showed significant association with condom use.Conclusions: High level of self-efficacy significantly increased the probability of condom use by boys and girls. Promote the culture of condom use and decreasing shame to provide it in community help to increase this self-efficacy. Therefore, health providers should decide to provide accessibility to condom and distributing it freely, especially among high risk youths such as drug or alcohol users.

کلیدواژه ها:

Condom ، Use Rate ، Sex ، Youth ، Drug ، Alcohol