The prevalence of religiosity and association between religiosity and alcohol use, other drug use, and risky sexual behaviours among grade 8-10 learners in Western Cape, South Africa

Francis, Joel Msafiri, Myers, Bronwyn, Nkosi, Sebenzile, Williams, Petal Petersen, Carney, Tara, Lombard, Carl, Nel, Elmarie and Morojele, Neo (2019) The prevalence of religiosity and association between religiosity and alcohol use, other drug use, and risky sexual behaviours among grade 8-10 learners in Western Cape, South Africa. PLoS One, 14 (2). ISSN 1932-6203

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Abstract

Background Alcohol and other drug use (AOD) and risky sexual behaviours remain high among adolescents in South Africa and globally. Religiosity influences, mitigates and provides resilience against engaging in risky behaviours among young people but few South African studies have explored potential associations between religiosity, AOD use and risky sex. We report the prevalence of religiosity and association between religiosity and AOD use and risky sexual behaviours among learners in the Western Cape Province, South Africa. Methods Between May and August 2011, a cross sectional survey was conducted among 20 227 learners from 240 public schools randomly selected through a stratified multistage sampling design to determine the prevalence of AOD use and sexual risk behaviours. We performed univariate and multivariate logistic regression analyses to assess the association between religiosity, AOD use and risky sexual behaviours. Results The learners were aged 10-23 years. Almost three quarters (74%) of learners reported high religiosity (defined as attending religious services or activities at least 1-2 times a month). More female than male learners had high religiosity. The prevalence of past 30 day reported alcohol, tobacco and cannabis use was 23%, 19% and 8% respectively. Compared to learners with low religiosity, those with high religiosity were less likely to engage in AOD use: specifically alcohol use, (AOR = 0.86, 95%CI: 0.76-0.97), tobacco use (AOR = 0.76, 95%CI: 0.67-0.87), cannabis use (AOR = 0.57, 95%CI: 0.48-0.68) in the last 30 days. They were also less likely to engage in risky sexual behaviours (AOR = 0.90, 95%CI: 0.81-0.99).

Item Type:	Article
Additional Information:	Publisher Copyright: © 2019 Francis et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Uncontrolled Keywords:	general ,/dk/atira/pure/subjectarea/asjc/1000
Faculty \ School:	Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences > School of Health Sciences
Related URLs:	http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?...
Depositing User:	LivePure Connector
Date Deposited:	04 Mar 2026 11:30
Last Modified:	04 Mar 2026 11:30
URI:	https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/102170
DOI:	10.1371/journal.pone.0211322

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