Knowledge and preventive practice on Sexually Transmitted Infections among first year students in Nursing Colleges of Bhutan

Introduction: Sexually Transmitted Infections (STIs) are increasing globally and became the public health concerns particularly in adolescents. The adolescents are prone to get STI’s due to involvements of unhealthy behavior. However, adolescents having deficiency in identifying the signs and symptoms of STIs, could lead to complications such as infertility, Pelvic Inflammatory Disease (PID). No studies have been conducted among nursing students regarding knowledge and preventive practice on STI. Therefore, this study was aimed at determining the information about nursing college students’ knowledge and preventive practice on STIs. Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted among first-year nursing students among four nursing colleges of Bhutan. Purposive sampling was used. Self-administrative questionnaire including information on demographic characteristics, knowledge and preventive practice on STI was given. Results: A total of 372 first year students from four nursing colleges in the age group of 18-22 years, participated in this study with 100% response rate. The mean age was 20.08 (±SD-1.83) years. Teacher (62.26%) was the main source of information on STI prevention. Majority of students (83%) knew that the most common methods of contraception (barrier) was condom. Half of the students (50.27%) had fair/intermediate level of knowledge, while less than 35% of the students had poor level of knowledge. Conclusions: Students knowledge level on STI was fair and found that condom was known as an effective barrier contraception.