Factors Impacting Sexual Health Service-Seeking Behaviors Among a Sample of Collegians at a Large Southeastern University

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Background Increasing college students’ use of clinical sexual health services may help improve health outcomes.Purpose Guided by Andersen’s Model of Healthcare Utilization (AMHU), we examined how predisposing, enabling and need factors influenced sexual health service utilization behaviors among college students in a southeastern state.Methods College students enrolled at a large, southeastern university were recruited for across-sectional, survey study regarding their use of clinical sexual health services. Logistic regression was conducted to investigate the relationship between AMHU factors and sexual health service utilization behaviors.Results/Discussion Findings suggest that need factors, one’s awareness of where sexual health services are available (enabling factor), gender, state of residency, and sexual health knowledge (predisposing factors) may be the strongest predictors of college students seeking sexual health services.Translation to Health Education Practice Health Education professionals should consider incorporating these AMHU factors into educational programming, health services, and awareness campaigns to increase sexual health service utilization by college students.A AJHE Self-Study quiz is online for this article via the SHAPE America Online Institute (SAOI) http://portal.shapeamerica.org/trn-Webinars.