Unplanned and unintended pregnancies have become major medical, social and public health issues worldwide. The objective of this study was to determine sexual exposure, awareness and knowledge of long active reversible contraceptives (LARC) among female undergraduate students in public and private universities in Ekiti State, Southwest Nigeria. A comparative cross-sectional study was carried out among 428 female university undergraduates in Ekiti State (208 students in public and 210 students in private) using a multi-stage sampling technique. Data were obtained using a semi-structured questionnaire and analyzed using IBM SPSS version 23. P-value <0.05 was taken as significant. The mean age of respondents was 21.1±2.5years in public and 19.3±2.1years in private university. 53% of public university students and 30% of private university students have had sexual intercourse. While 41.3% of public university students were aware of LARC, 37.1% of the private university students were aware. The knowledge of LARC among the public university students was lower (23.6%) as compared to those in private university (33.3%). We conclude that while sexual exposure is higher among public university students than in private, the awareness of LARC was higher in public than private universities. Continuous campaign programmes to university students on the benefit of LARC is recommended.
Keywords: Awareness; Ekiti State; LARC; knowledge; students.