Objectives: To determine the prevalence and characteristics of individuals with more than one sexual partner in the Central African Republic during the previous 12 months.
Design: A national survey.
Methods: A stratified sample of 2589 individuals aged 15-50 years was interviewed in late 1989. The 157-question survey questionnaire was a modified version of a questionnaire developed by the World Health Organization Global Programme on AIDS.
Results: Thirty-four per cent of men and 17% of women reported having sex with more than one partner during the previous 12 months. For both men and women, logistic regression indicated that the risk of having multiple partners increased with being single compared with being married; being employed in a profession other than agriculture compared with being a farmer, unemployed, a housewife, or a student; living in an urban rather than a rural area; rape being part of their first sexual encounter; and combining sex with alcohol. Risk increased with increasing ability to read for men and with decreasing age and drinking alcohol for women.
Conclusions: These findings can be used to develop and target HIV/AIDS prevention and control programmes and to improve mathematical models of the epidemic.