Assessment of Level of Knowledge of Reproductive Health and Sexual Behavior among Adolescents in Nekemte Town
Creators: name: Egata, Gudina
Publisher: name: National Academic Digital Repository of Ethiopia
Year: 2005

description: The adolescence period is a very interesting one. Isangedihi (1994) sees the period as a time of growth spurt, caused by increased hormonal activities and of self-awareness and development. Although studies have been conducted to assess sexual behaviors of adolescents still the reproductive health problems and sexual behaviors of younger people and their contributing factors are not well assessed and documented for every parts of the country. A cross-sectional community based survey was conducted to assess the level of knowledge of reproductive health especially HIV /AIDs and risky sexual behavior among urban adolescents. Data were collected using a structured pre tested questionnaire. Knowledge score was calculated for HIV /AIDS by computing 29 dichotomous variables related to the knowledge of HIV /AIDS. Odds ratio with 95% CI was employed to test the significant association between measurement variables and multiple logistic regression was also utilized to control for the possible confounders. A total of 748 adolescents aged 12 –19 years were identified to participate in this study .Out of these, 16 refused to participate while 11 involved partially in the study. Data were collected only from 721 study subjects, 316 (43.8%) males and 405 (56.2%) females, yielding the response rate of 96.4 %. The mean age of the respondents is 16 years (+ 2 SD). Nearly 66.0% of them knew about RH. 701(97.0%) out of 721 adolescents mentioned diseases that a person could acquire through sexual intercourse. These include HIV/AIDS 674(96.1%), gonorrhea 621(88.6%), and syphilis 583 ix (83.2%), chancroid 523 (74.6 %) and LGV 295 (42.1%), respectively. A substantial proportion (44.2%) of the adolescents can be considered knowledgeable about HIV/AIDS. 18.0% of them were sexually active and the mean age at sexual commencement was 14.48 (+ 2.89 SD) years for males and 14.86 (+ 2.19 SD) for females. 35.0% of the respondents have reported that they have had two or more life time sexual partners. Being male, knowing means of avoiding pregnancy and where to get RH services, accessibility of RH services and being sexually active were found to influence adolescents' knowledge of HIV /AIDS positively while younger age and ever visit of health institution for RH services affected their knowledge negatively. Multipartnership or risky sexual behavior was 2.4 times more common among males compared to females (OR=2.408 (1.028,5.64). However, accessibility of RH services, ever discussion of sexual matters with parents, alcohol and khat consumption were found to influence risky sexual behavior negatively. The condom use rate among adolescents was 36.9 %. Orthodox Christians were found to use condom less likely compared to Catholic and Muslim religious people. Similarly, the study subjects who have ever had one life time sexual partner, discussed about sexual matters with their parents and smoked cigarettes were also found to use condom less likely compared to their counter parts. It was concluded that few knew correctly the components of RH and this could lead to the development of risky sexual and reproductive behavior and Parent- young people communication on sexual matters was very poor. Thus, Strengthening of I .E .C on RH matters for x adolescents in an effort to enhance their level of awareness on adolescent RH including HIV/ AIDS by involving parents, religious and other community leaders and relevant organizational sectors as well, facilitating adolescents' peer education on their sexuality both at the school and family level, and designing means of increasing parents-young people communication on sexuality from early adolescence to overcome the untimely RH problems were recommended .