Determinants of Social Network Site Preferences for Accessing Reproductive Health Information among Students in Public Universities in Nairobi, Kenya

Abstract

Kenyan population is about 50 million out of which 35 percent is the youth which form the future workforce and a core economic pillar of the country. Past studies have found the university students to be very active sexually and therefore at risk of adverse reproductive health outcomes including early marriage, unintended pregnancy, early childbirth, abortion, incomplete education and sexually transmitted infections including HIV and AIDS.The integration of SNS holds a key strategy in conducting reproductive health promotion interventions that targets and engages the university students for positive health outcomes. This study sought to investigate the determinants of social network sites preferences for accessing reproductive health information among undergraduate students enrolled in public universities within Nairobi County in Kenya. This study is anchored on the Uses and Gratifications Theory and the Technology Acceptance Model. The study considered gratifications; perceived usefulness; perceived ease of use as the independent variables that influence SNS preferences for accessing reproductive health information among university students. Demographic factors of age and gender were considered as the moderating variables in the study. SNS preferences for accessing reproductive health information was defined as the dependent variable. The study focused on four popular social network sites namely; Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp, and Instagram. The study adopted a mixed research design method combining both quantitative and qualitative data. Simple random sampling was used to select students while purposive sampling was used to select chief medical officers from the public universities in Nairobi County for key informant interviews. The study population was 138,157 undergraduate university students between 18 and 29 years who are currently enrolled in the main campuses of the five public universities in Nairobi County since they run most of the university programs in addition being good consumers of SNS. Cochran’s formulae was used to get the sample size of 385 undergraduate university students from the study population. Questionnaires were used as instruments for obtaining the data required from the students while key informant interviews were used to obtain data for the medical officers. Validity and reliability of the questionnaire was enhanced by carrying out a pilot study prior to data collection. The data analysis was both descriptive and inferential. Quantitative data was analyzed using SPSS version 24. The statistics included-descriptive statistics, namely Cross tabulation, Frequencies, and Descriptive Ratios bivariate and nonparametric tests. Regression analysis used to predict numerical outcomes. The study findings revealed that of gratifications, perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use significantly influence SNS preferences for accessing reproductive health information. Facebook was the most popular SNS with 55%, followed by WhatsApp with 34.2%. Gender significantly moderated SNS preference for accessing reproductive health information while age did not. The study concludes that SNS need to be used together with other media to provide youth targeted reproductive health information for positive health outcomes.