Perceptions of Reproductive Health in Muslim Undergrads

Perceptions of Reproductive Health in Moslem UndergradsA MULTIDIMENSIONAL CONSTRUCT OF PERCEPTIONS ON SEXUAL AND REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH AMONG MUSLIM UNDERGRADUATE STUDENTSAbstractThis study examines factors influencing undergraduate pupils who be all Muslims from one of the public universities in Malaysia. randomness were obtained from a survey conducted among the undergraduate students (n=255). Principle Components Analysis (PCA) revealed four latent factors the electronic and printed media, knowledge of circumcision, the Islamic regard ass on innerity and their prior knowledge of energiseual act. Based on the views of the respondents on the roles played by curriculum, religion and media in disseminating knowledge on wake up-related matters, recommendations argon drawn to assist the relevant parties in orgasm up with comprehensive inner activity fostering for Muslim adolescents.Key wordssex/ innerity education, generative wellness, undergraduate student, Muslim, learni ngs, Principle Component Analysis (PCA) insane asylumStudies which have been carried emerge in Muslim societies on sexual and fruitful health are limited. Many late Muslims are emitted from the learning process to offer the cultural and religious restrictions (Cok, 2000 DeJong et al., 2007 Halstead, 1997 Nurazzura, 2007 Underwood, 2000). Very little is, therefore, known or so the factors that influence the Muslim y step forwardhs on sexual and fruitful health. Several studies in some Muslim countries reported that Muslim y out(p)h are not well prepared and educated in sexual and reproductive health due to some add factors. (Burazeri et al., 2003 Gkengin et al., 2003 Mohammad Reza et al.,2006 Nik Suryani et al., 2007 Paruk et al., 2006).Cok (2000) described sex education in Turkey, as similar as many other Muslim countries in the world, as there are no sexuality classes, no mention of sexuality in health courses or no sexuality textbook material in Turkish school daytimes. otherwise issues take priority and sexuality education is pushed aside as unimportant and irrelevant (p.5). Moreover, he stated that Turkish Muslim adolescents are highly influenced by media especially form Europe and North America. In addition, the study on 2,227 for the first time-and fourth - classs students at Ege Univesity, Gkengin et al. (2003) revealed that knowledge about sexual health and sexuality transmitted diseases is insufficient among their exemplars.In Albania, Burazeri et al. (2003) reported the mean age at first sexual intercourse 720 undergraduate students in Tirana was 17.9 for men and 18.8 years for woman. They to a fault free-base substantiating associations of parental education and income level with sexual activity and consistent use of condoms among Albanian undergraduate students.Mohammad Reza et al. (2006) described the sex education in Iran that cultural sensitivities which may be a factor in young quite a littles poor knowledge about reproductive he alth. Furthermore, few programs provide sexuality education to adolescents or enable youth to ask questions and correct misconceptions about reproductive health. Indeed, large numbers of young Iranians lack information about safe sex and about the skills necessary to negotiate and adopt safe sex practices. In their study of 1,385 males aged 15-18 in Tehran about their beliefs and knowledge regarding reproductive health and their engaging in sexual activity, they found that there was a relatively high prevalence of sexual activity and the lack of knowledge regarding STIs and contraceptives pose a significant threat to the sexual and reproductive health of Iranian adolescent males. Hence, they requested programs to provide adolescents with the right information and skills to make safe sexual decisions.A study conducted by Nik Suryani et al. (2007) with undergraduate students (n=300) in Malaysia , discovered that, in general, students held a positive view toward sex and sex-related ma tters however, their knowledge on sexuality education, sexual and reproductive health matters calls for attention from the relevant authorities. Findings on their sources of information on sexuality education also revealed that more could be do to help them obtain an accurate picture of sex-related matters particularly with the roles played by parents, school, religion and media in disseminating knowledge on sex-related matters.Paruk et al. (2006) presented finding on the influence of religiosity on attitude toward people with HIV/AIDS using 90 South African Muslim university students. They found that higher religiosity was significantly correlated with a more positive attitude to people with HIV.Ojo Bidemi (2008) conducted a study with 520 adolescent of Nigerian students on contemporary clothing habits and sexual behavior of adolescents in the South Western Nigeria. They found that there is no significant difference in the factors influencing adolescents dressing habits and also the fact that there is relationship amid clothing habits and their sexual behavior.In Pakistan, Qidwai (2000) surveyed perception among 188 Pakistani young men, who presented to family physicians, at the outpatient department of the Aga Khan University Hospital, Karachi, about enjoyment of sexual experiences in women. He found a high prevalence of misconceptions about female sexuality among Pakistani young men. Furthermore, Hennink, Rana, Iqbal (2005) studied on knowledge of personal and sexual development amongst young people in Pakistan. They found that young women typically gain information from a limited number of sources while young men accessed a wide variety of information sources outside the home.From studies done in various Muslim countries, however, there is not enough information on factors influencing the basic sexual and reproductive health among Muslim undergraduate student as well as in other developing countries (Singh, Bankole Woog, 2005). Intervention studies ar e largely absent. There is a need therefore to secure factors associated with Muslims sexual perception to develop a clear understanding in student variables, the results of which may contribute to help students on their knowledge and behavior regarding to sexual and reproductive health and it will help determine best bets for programs for sex education for Muslim youths.The purpose of this study was to survey Muslim undergraduate students perceptions in sexual and reproductive health, and in doing so, to clarify the meaning of the construct itself. Thus, the study addressed the following research questions What are the factors influencing Muslim undergraduate students perceptions towards sexual and reproductive health?This study is based on the crossed different populations and geographic regions influencing factor adolescent on sexual and reproductive health studied by Manlove et al. (2001). They pointed out that there are multiple domains in an adolescents life associated with r eproductive health outcomes. By grounded on the ecological approach, individual factor, family factor, peers, partners, school context, neighborhood, community, and social policy characteristics are all associated with sexual behaviors, adolescent pregnancy, and STI. However, this study only looked at certain dimensions which comprised (1) individual factor (religiosity, knowledge of reproductive health and attitudes and belief about sex) (2) school context (curriculum) and, (3) media.The authors, therefore, hypothesized that there are four influencing factors of undergraduate Muslim students perception on sexual and reproductive health (1) school and tertiary curriculum support, (2) Islamic values on sexuality, (3) electronic and printed media, and (4) students prior knowledge on sexual and reproduction health.Significance of StudyResults of this study are pictured to provide existential data on factors influencing perception on sexual and reproductive health among Muslim undergra duate students that have not been fully studied. Thus, the results of this study are expect to help in the understanding of students perception towards sexual and reproductive health and sex education which is promoted by several factors. The findings are beneficial to understand and determine the success or failure of factors influence and the implementation of sex education in Islamic higher learning institute as perceived by students. Such information can help to improve the strategy in lodge to accomplish the sex education particularly for Muslim youths.Method look designIn this study, the survey method was employed. A questionnaire was selected from Nik Suryani et al. (2007) measured these relationships. It consisted of two parts. The questionnaires were distributed randomly to a sample of undergraduate in the International Islamic University Malaysia (IIUM). commonwealth and sampleThe population is the undergraduate students in IIUM, Gombak campus, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. All were Malaysians. A random sampling was use to select participants. The principle component analysis (PCA) was conducted where the number of sample depends on the items of the questionnaire. Since the number of the item is 40, the minimum sample size is 40 x 5 = 200 participants. In this study, the participants were 255 which were more than the minimum requirement (Hair et al., 2006).Data CollectionTo distribute the questionnaires, researchers sought help from three students which researchers have known. The questionnaire has an wedded covering letter that assures the confidentially of data collected and describes the major components of questionnaires to be completed. Students were tending(p) one week to complete the questionnaires and had to return them to the assigned persons within the time allocated. The usable returned response rate was 72.9 % (n=255) out of 350 students. The data collected was operated on January 2008. inclemency and ReliabilityTo establish the face and con struct validity of the instrument, the opinions of two experts in education were sought on the design and items used for the various dimension. The instrument was vanish tested on 30 students that was not on the list of the selected students. Based on the pilot test, 50 items from Nik Suryani et al. (2007) was tested and a few items were omitted in order to refine the instrument further. Finally, 40 items were confirmed with a reliability of Alpha Cronbach = .72.InstrumentationThe survey instrument was adopted from a core questionnaire developed by Nik Suryani et al. (2007). The questionnaire comprised 40 questions divided into two sections social and demographic variables and students views and knowledge on a wide range of topics on sex and attitudes towards sex. It sought to find out students perceptions on(1) school and tertiary curriculum (5 items no.1-5)(2) Islamic values on sexuality (6 items no.6-11)(3) electronic and printed media (4 items no.12-15)(4) sexual novel (4 items no.16-19)(5) their prior knowledge of sexual and reproductive health5.1 protected sex (6items no.20-25)5.2 sexual act (9 items no.26-34)5.3 circumcisions (9 items no.35-40).The response to each item is in the form of a five-point Likert scale of strongly disagree, disagree, undetermined, agree, and strongly agree.The demographic characteristic of the first section of the questionnaire contains questions with regard to the respondents background information (gender, age, country of origin, former school and location, faculty, year of study, CGPA, and marital billet).Data analysisFor the demographic data, frequency and percentage were employed. To answer the research question on factors influencing students perceptions of sexual and reproductive health, principle component analysis was utilized.An instructive factor analysis was conducted to construct-validate the factor influencing students perception. To find out the number of factors the following rules were used (1) the Kaise rs rule of 1.0 as the minimum eigenvalues, (2) the scree test and (3) the interpretability of the solutions. The degree of intercorrelation among items justify the application of the factor analysis as well as the Batletts test of sphericity recorded a Chi square value.ResultsTable 1 shows out of 255 students, 152 (59.6%) were females and 101 (39.6%) were males. A majority of the students (91.4%) were between 20 and 25 years of age, the remaining being distributed between the age group of younger than 20 (7.4%) and of age(p) than 25 (1.2%). Approximately, 239 (93.7%) of the respondents were Malaysians while 16 (6.3%) were international students. Most of students (37.2%) graduated from urban day school, followed by religious school (27.1%), boarding school (16.5%), rural day school (9.0%), private school (5.9%), and others (1.9%). The respondents were represented from different faculty with nearly half (42.4%) being law students (AIKOL). The other half was distributed between Human Sciences (24.3%), KENMS (11.8%), engineering science (7.1%), KAED (5.5%), INSTED (3.9%), KICT (2.7%), and IRK (2.4%) respectively.Majority of students were second year student (32.5%), the remaining being al around distributed between the final year (29.8%), the first year (21.2%), and the third year (16.5%). In general, almost more than half of the students (49.4%) had CGPA more than 3.0, while the rest (28.7%) had less than 3.0. Almost 95.7% students were single which 131 (53.7%) were not attached to someone and 110 (45.1%) were having attached to someone, only 11 (4.3%) students were married.Table 1Respondents Demographic BackgroundVariablesNPercent1. GenderMale10139.6Female15259.6Missing Value20.82.Age197.420-2523391.42531.23.Country of OriginMalaysian (local student)23993.7Non-Malaysian (international student)166.34. Former schooldays and LocationUrban Day School9537.2Rural Day School239.0Boarding School4216.5Religious School6927.1Private School155.9Others62.4Missing values51 .95. moduleInformation and Communication Technology (KICT)72.7Engineering187.1Laws (AIKOL)10842.4Human Sciences (HS)6224.3Islamic Revealed Knowledge (IRK)62.3Institute of Education (INSTEAD)103.9 economics and Management Sciences (KENMS)3011.8Architecture and Environmental Design ( KAED)145.56. Year of study1st year5421.22nd year8332.5third year4216.54th year 7629.85. CGPA10.42.00-2.49114.42.50-2.996123.93.00-3.49102403.50249.4Missing Value5621.96. Marital statusSingle24495.7Single and have attached to someone11045.1Single and have not attached to someone13153.7Missing Value31.2 married114.3n = 255Perceptions toward sexual and Reproductive HealthTable 2 summarizes the results of the descriptive analysis of the students perceptions on sexual and reproductive health. The data showed that the mean gain ranged between 1.83 (items PRO23) and 4.57 (items REL10) the standard deviations ranged from .66 (items SEX34) to 1.18 (items PRO23). The mean scores were located within the expected r ange (none of the items are included a mean score of zero, at 95 % level of confidence, with a reliability of Alpha Cronbach = .72). The data showed that the dispersion of the scores for each item sufficiently discriminated the students perceptions. In addition, the degree of bivariate correlation among most of the 40 items matric variables ranged from low to high. However six of them (items EDU1, EDU2, PRO24, SEX28, SEX31, and CIR39) were found to link weakly and negatively with the rest of the items.Table 2Mean (Standard Deviation) and Item-Total Correlations of Students Perceptions on informal and Reproductive HealthItemsCodeMSDr1. The content of information on sexual related matters taught at school is sufficient.EDU12.951.157.0812. Courses like Family Management and Parenting at undergraduate level should openly discuss sexual and reproductive health matters.EDU24.11.876.0233. Sexual education should be taught as subject of its own at unessential schools.EDU33.281.176.2274. S exual education should be taught as a separate subject at the tertiary level.EDU43.601.043.1955. Sexual education should be taught in pre-marital courses.EDU54.38.686.1766. Quran provides me with information on sexuality in a decent manner.REL64.38.789.2397. My religious knowledge provides basis for me to develop the conscience not to engage in premarital sexREL74.52.728.1928. Religion helps me suppress my sexual desire.REL84.26.847.2379. Fasting is one of the best ways to keep my sexual desire under control.REL94.31.910.32710. Watching pornography is forbidden in Islam.REL104.57.767.30311. The only way to eliminate illicit sex is by implementing the Syariah Law.REL114.19.922.38912. Electronic media portrays negative perception of sexuality.MED123.701.079.33913. Printed media portrays negative perception of sexuality.MED133.651.075.37214. Electronic media operates young people to guess on pre-marital sexual relationship.MED144.10.927.35715. Printed media leads young people to emba rk on pre-marital sexual relationship.MED153.94.987.41216. Reading sexy novels leads people to having pre-marital sex.NOV163.421.036.35417. Novels are most descriptive about sexual intercourses than other sources.NOV172.981.072.35018. Novels with sexual descriptions increase my desire to masturbate.NOV182.691.107.32419. Novels with sexual descriptions increase my sexual fantasies.NOV192.951.093.26820. There is fertility problem if pregnancy does not occur in the first year of marriage.PRO202.52.972.21821. Unprotected sexual intercourse will guarantee pregnancy.PRO213.321.175.33922. Protected intercourse guarantee pregnancy wont occur.PRO222.701.085.23523. Kissing and touching can lead to pregnancy.PRO231.831.177.15324. The use of contraceptives or protected sex ensures safety from sexually related diseases.PRO243.41.996.06925. Islam forbids the use of contraceptives.PRO252.871.010.16926. Preservation of virginity is most important for both men and women before getting married.SEX26 4.53.781.12527. Sex is painful for first timers.SEX273.44.933.10028. Sex is painful for women.SEX283.22.886.06929. Sex is pleasurable to both men and women.SEX294.04.853.16230. Only matured people enjoy sexual relationship.SEX302.881.088.10031. Sexual relationship is for young people only.SEX311.91.909-.05732. Good Communication between spouses ensures satisfying sexual relationship.SEX324.32.839.10033. Knowledge about sex is a pre requisite for enjoying sex.SEX334.05.876.24634. Understanding between each others needs help improve sexual satisfaction.SEX344.39.660.16835. Circumcision is mainly for health reasons.CIR353.931.090.19236. Circumcision is for cultural reasons.CIR362.431.033.18937. Circumcision for women reduces sexual satisfaction.CIR372.89.935.11638. Circumcision for women represses their sexual desires.CIR382.96.856.23539. Circumcision for men reduces sexual satisfaction.CIR392.59.977.07640. Circumcision for men represses their sexual desires.CIR402.92.969.105 The prim al Dimensions of Students PerceptionsTo identify the factors that influence undergraduate Muslim students response toward sexual and reproductive health, the data collected from the sample of 255 respondents were subjected to principal component analysis. Nevertheless, the present analysis used only the responses on the 34 of the 40 items (Table 3). Based on the results of item analysis as described in the preceding section, 6 of the items (items EDU1, EDU2, PRO24, SEX28, SEX31, and CIR39) were excluded because they were behaving poorly in the item-total correlation.Table 3 summarizes the correlations among the 34 items supported the use of principal component analysis. Specifically, the Bartlett Sphericity Test yielded statistically significant intercorrelation c2 (561) = 2525.854, p = .001 with an overall MSA of .65, which exceeded the value of .60.Thus, the data matrix has sufficient correlation to justify the use of the exploratory factor analysis. The principal component analys is yielded a seven -factor dimension structure, invoice for 60.69% of the variance. This indicates that four underlying dimensions explain more than 60% of the variance among the 34 variables.The eigenvalues, ranging from 1.616 to 3.0622 (which is greater than 1 as required), satisfied the standards of important factors as prescribed by Hair, Jr. et al. (2006).Table 3Correlation Matrix and Descriptive StatisticEDU3EDU4EDU5REL6REL7REL8REL9REL10REL11MED12MED13MED14MED15NOV16NOV17NOV18NOV19PRO20PRO21PRO22PRO23PRO25SEX26SEX27SEX29SEX30SEX32SEX33SEX34CIR35CIR36CIR37CIR38CIR40EDU3.548EDU4-.284.557EDU5-.134-.128.747REL6.051-.046-.085.769REL7-.021.017-.107-.385.735REL8.061-.006.027-.125-.233.724REL9-.052.028-.011-.130-.104-.210.771REL10.015-.084-.110-.084-.023-.234-.002.742REL11.007.040-.099.027-.140.031-.194-.153.782MED12.062.071.045-.034.068.107-.062-.183-.005.669MED13-.162-.074.029-.025-.014-.082.046.100-.202-.784.666MED14.046.052-.088.045-.021.080.110-.118.071.005-.172.664MED15-.032-.0 25.017.003.001-.124-.044.120-.113-.074.052-.763.688NOV16.162-.022.047-.145.047.001-.010-.069-.191.020.072-.138-.034.757NOV17-.020-.056.094.046.028.017-.174.000.125.028-.029.045-.141-.328.713NOV18-.034.113-.078-.017-.081.124-.030-.024.209-.019-.076.141-.089-.188-.191.591NOV19.085-.105-.101.183-.018-.168.126.040-.053-.004-.012-.011.013-.001-.047-.663.588PRO20-.106.172.097-.095.194-.099.024-.007-.015-.018-.118-.040.033-.075.118.036-.051.630PRO21.032-.077-.059.056-.056.056-.098.072-.002.006-.031.051-.044-.124.065-.090.049-.093.610PRO22-.055-.041.006-.023-.001.022-.140.004-.097-.053.109.067-.031.108-.111-.081.059-.147-.290.485PRO23-.120.028.054-.017.112-.070.003.149-.198-.060.040-.141.111.042-.050-.087.012.010-.045-.196.619PRO25.088-.126.092-.052.056.126-.134-.206.005.114-.030-.028-.017-.015.002.025-.096-.120-.169.099-.126.490SEX26.004-.041.071-.092-.141.034-.010-.063-.056-.031.023-.049.067.080-.175.047.036-.006-.204.086.101.057.671SEX27.079.083-.093.080-.078-.056.098.135-.107.051-.024-. 100.015.098.074-.135.085.026.196-.244.092-.128-.197.319SEX29-.085-.058-.089-.088.013-.091.011-.055.033-.086.153.029-.007.048-.105.135-.199-.211-.196.120.069.111.114-.195.572SEX30-.023.064-.009-.090.118.029-.161-.055.048-.006.000-.110.075-.117-.027.114-.097-.009.011-.001.036.092.101-.143.147.536SEX32-.243.095.094-.039.066-.068-.006.074-.018-.148.127-.028.018.047-.001-.043-.004.231-.038.114.041-.106-.040-.103-.054.089.640SEX33-.023.060.014.163-.195.084-.110-.149.058.090-.043.062-.055-.124-.088.088-.092-.192.057.133-.119.097-.036-.040.056-.046-.193.570SEX34.127-.132-.039-.139.173-.044.020.067-.049.105-.085-.076.025.064.193-.167.075.158.006-.155.072.032-.058.123-.256-.054-.333-.463.555CIR35-.103.093.052-.006.018.025-.115-.101-.075-.026.058-.053.056.011-.026-.020-.012.065-.052.054.038-.065-.104-.074.019.018.053.128-.237.600CIR36.003-.139.060-.085.159-.147.181.069-.084.015.045-.014.021.025-.197-.173.174-.052-.137.084.010-.068.108-.114.020-.026.032-.170.133-.113.613CIR37-.145.013.021.044-. 011.168-.081.037.072-.034.015-.086.068-.157.067.104-.121.003.126