RESUMEN
OBJECTIVES: To estimate non-condom user rate and to characterize non-condom users among female nurses. DESIGN: Cross sectional. SETTING: Health institutions. SUBJECTS: Data from 640 (86.5pc) out of 740 consenting female nurses were available for analyses. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE: Non-condom user rate. RESULTS: Non-condom user rate (per 100) among the female nurses was 73.1pc (95pc CI69.7 to 76.5). Non-condom users tended to be aged above 30 years (OR 1.57; 95pc CI 1.02 to 2.40), midwives (OR 1.56; 95pc CI 1.03 to 2.37), married (OR 2.70; 95pc CI 1.73 to 4.21), not to think that spouse/partner has had sex with other partners (OR 1.72; 95pc CI 1.11 to 2.68) and to have had a sexually transmitted disease (OR 2.61; 95pc CI 1.25 to 5.43). CONCLUSION: There was a surprising high level of non-condom users among female nurses, probably due to the inability for females to initiate or negotiate condom use.
PIP: A cross sectional study covering 30 main health institutions in all the 9 provinces of Zambia was carried out using data collected in 1992 from nurses who filled in a self-administered questionnaire. The data from 640 nurses were analyzed: 316 were midwives. 30.9% of this sample was in the 30-34 year old age group and 71.7% were married. The non-condom use rate among them was 73.1%. The results of the bivariate analyses of various factors indicated significant findings: nurses 30 years and older were associated with non-condom use (odds ratio [OR] 1.97); and nurse midwives were 1.78 times more likely not to use condoms. Married nurses were 2.37 times more likely not to use condoms. Nurses who lived in consensual union with their sexual partners were 2.5 times more likely not to use condoms, while nurses who had one sexual partner were 2.65 times more likely not to use condoms. Nurses who did not think that their spouses or partners had sex with other partners were 2.05 times more likely not to use condoms. Nurses who had sexually transmitted diseases were 2.17 times more likely not to use condoms. Logistic regression analysis included age (30 and older), occupation for midwives, marital status, no sex life of spouse-partner with other partners, and ever having STDs. It demonstrated that the ORs and their 95% confidence intervals obtained using forward stepwise logistic regions were exactly the same as for those obtained using the backward stepwise logistic regression. Only the factors relating to the frequency of living together with sexual partners and the number of sexual partners were dropped from the model. The adjusted ORs did not differ statistically from the unadjusted one at the 5% significance level. Further studies to enhance condom use should examine the empowering of both women and men to negotiate for safer sex.