Age Disparity in Marriage and Sexually Transmitted infections among Women in Shomolu Lagos State, Nigeria

Abstract

This study investigates age disparity in marriage and the incidence of sexually transmitted infections among spouses in Shomolu, Lagos State Nigeria.The study adopted a descriptive and cross-sectional design in which a multi-stage sampling method comprising cluster sampling, simple random sampling and the convenience sampling techniques were used to select 400 married women in Shomolu, Lagos State. A structured, close ended questionnaire was used in a researcher administered survey to elicit responses. Descriptive statistics and the Chi-square test guided data analysis. Data show a high prevalence of older male-younger female marriage (n=365; 93.5%) and older-women-younger-male marriage (n = 14; 3.7%). Some women (n=48; 13.8%) had ever been infected with STIs such as Gonorrhea (n = 31; 64.5%), syphilis (n = 14; 29.2%) and chlamydia (n = 3; 6.3%). There was a statistically significant association between age disparity (χ2 = 4.266; df = 1; p