Objectives:

To determine the prevalence of risky sexual behaviours in adolescents and to make a comparison by sex in a population of undergraduate students in Chile.

Materials and methods:

Cross-sectional descriptive study conducted in first-year undergraduate students enrolled in 2016 in a private university in Concepción-Chile. The sample size consisted of 328 subjects, and non-probabilistic convenience sampling was used. The variables measured were sociodemographic characteristics, risky sexual behaviours and other sexual characterisation behaviours. On the other hand risky sexual behaviours were compared by sex. Descriptive statistics were used and the Chi square test or Fisher's exact test were used for the comparative analysis.

Results:

Overall, 107 women and 77 men were studied. The main risky sexual behaviours were initiation of sexual activity before 18 years of age (88.31 %; 74.77 %, respectively), having had more than one sexual partner (66.24 %; 53.27 %, respectively), and a very low frequency of preservative use during intercourse in women (48 %). Comparison of behaviours by sex showed statistically significant differences between men and women in terms of the age of initiation of sexual activity (p = 0.022), the number of sex partners (p = 0.008), and preservative use (p = 0.001).

Conclusions:

More than half of the adolescent students exhibited risky sexual behaviours. These results shed light on the need to strengthen public policy pertaining to the population of adolescents and young adults in Chile, in particular considering that reducing teenage pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases is one of the strategic health goals in Chile.

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