DETERMINANTS OF REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH CHOICES BEHAVIOUR OF ADOLESCENTS IN WEST GONJA DISTRICT

Abstract

Adolescents like any other human beings have the right to reproductive health. They have the rights to protect themselves from unwanted sex, unplanned pregnancy, early child bearing, unsafe abortions and sexually transmitted infections. Denial of these rights could lead them to wrongful choices such as unprotected sex and unsafe termination of pregnancy. The study sought to find out the knowledge and attitude, sources of information, sexual behaviours and obstacles preventing adolescents to seek health on reproductive issues. The study was a cross-sectional, using both qualitative and quantitative research strategies. The population consisted of in-school and out-of-school adolescents of both males and females between 10-19 years old. A total of 367 respondents were interviewed on structured questionnaire for the quantitative data while four Focus Group Discussions for adolescents and five Key Informant Interviews conducted among health providers for the qualitative data. The quantitative data were transferred to Stata 11 for both bivariate and multivariate analysis. A p-value of less than 0.05 was assumed to be significant. Content analysis was used to analyze the qualitative data based on emerging themes and sub-themes in line with the study objectives. Generally the males showed higher knowledge in the reproductive health choices than the females. But knowledge on contraceptive methods and use is low. The most preferred source of information on their choices is the teacher; 70.3% males and 71.3% females. There is premarital sex among adolescents (30.9% males and 46.5% females), sexually transmitted infections (3% males and 12.4% females) and those who never had friends are 2.56 more likely to seek treatment ( odd ratio 2.56, P=0.005, at 95% CI 1.3-4.9) than those who ever had a friend. It can therefore be concluded that knowledge on reproductive health choices is high but it does not translate into healthy reproductive choices.