Sweden's female university students are enjoying twice as many partners but using fewer condoms than their counterparts of 10 years ago, worrying research has found.

At the same time, the number of female students copping to having an STD had doubled, according to the research from Uppsala University, the local.se reports. The findings come from a survey carried out every five years among female students using the Uni's health service.

The latest figures – culled from 2009 – show that female students had typically had 11 partners by the time they were polled, more than double the number their counterparts of 1999 had.

Meanwhile, the proportion who insisted on a new partner using a condom had deflated from 60 per cent to 49 per cent.

Unsurprisingly, the local.se report continues, almost a third of the students surveyed had contracted a sexually transmitted disease, double the rate among their counterparts a decade earlier.

The figures could be taken as demonstrating a worrying lassitude on sexual health matters among the current crop of female students in Sweden – unless degree courses there take upwards of a decade.

A professor quoted in the report said young women must start insisting their partners use condoms if the country was to stem the rising tide of STDs. ®