Pre-marital sex and its association with peer pressure and watching pornography among young individuals in Ethiopia: a systematic review and meta-analysis

There is no national representative estimate on pre-marital sex and its association with peer pressure and watching pornography among young individuals in Ethiopia. So, this study aimed to estimate the pooled prevalence of pre-marital sex and its association with peer pressure and watching pornography among young individuals in Ethiopia. A comprehensive search of international databases including CINAHL, Google Scholar, Cochrane Library, PubMed, HINARI, and Global Health was carried out to estimate the pooled prevalence of pre-marital sex and its association with peer pressure and watching pornography among young individuals in Ethiopia. The data were analyzed using STATA/SE version-14. The random-effect model was used to estimate the effect size and I-squared statistics and Egger's test were used to assess the heterogeneity publication bias respectively. A total of thirty-two studies with 18,354 study subjects were included in this meta-analysis. The pooled prevalence of premarital sex among young in Ethiopia was 33.59% [95% CI (29.09, 38.09)]. There was significant heterogeneity among the included articles (I(2) = 97.9, p = 0.000). Young individuals who experienced peer pressure were three times more likely to practice premarital sex compared to their counterparts [OR = 2.90, 95%, CI (1.01, 8.31)]. As the crude analysis result indicated, there was a significant association between watching pornography (sex movies) and premarital sexual practice [OR = 3.41, 95% CI (1.99, 5.84)]. However, after doing trim-and-fill analysis, the publication-bias adjusted OR indicates the absence of significant association between watching pornography and premarital sex [OR = 1.23, 95% CI (0.69, 1.76)]. The proportion of premarital sex among young individuals in Ethiopia remains high. Peer pressure had a statistically significant association with premarital sexual practice. However, the publication-bias adjusted OR indicates the absence of a significant association between watching pornography and premarital sex. Peer counseling services, sex education, and behavioral change communications should be strengthened to address factors associated with pre-marital sexual practices.