| dc.description.abstract | Adolscence sexual and reproductive health is a concept that has been recieving attention by the governments, researchers, donors and the community. The study therefore aimed at assessing factors influencing uptake of adolescent sexual and reproductive health services among adolescent students in Amuria town council. The broad objective of the study was to assess the factors influencing the uptake of adolescent sexual and reproductive health services among secondary students of Amuria town council and the specific objectives were three namely; to identify social demographic factors influencing the uptake of adolescent sexual and reproductive health services, to determine adolescent`s level of knowledge influencing uptake of adolescent sexual and reproductive health services and to establish health system factors influencing uptake of adolescent sexual and reproductive health services.
A cross sectional study involving 385 students from all the four secondary schools in the town council was done. Using the proportion to sample method of sample size calculation, Amuria S.S contributed 154 students, Amuria high 89, Kuju Seed S.S 74 and Apewolaye S.S 68 students that participated in the study using simple random sampling to obtain the number of students per each class in each school. Self administered questionniares were used to collect data and data obtained was entered and analysed using SPSS version 16.0 where univariate analysis was done, bivariate analysis and multivariate anlysis.
Males were more than females and the majority of participants were from S.2, where age, smoking and alcohol use were found to be influencing uptake of adolescent sexual and reproductive health among secondary students. Among the level of knowledge factors, ever suffered from STIs, engaged in sexual intercourses, ever received any family planning method, ever had a pregnancy, ever had an abortion and ever received any SRH counseling were found to be significant and thus influenced uptake of adolescent sexual and reproductive health among students. Among the health system factors, availability of SRH facility and ever visited any SRH facility influenced uptake of adolescent sexual and reproductive health
services among students who participated in the study.
The study also revealed that a few parents do offer sexual and reproductive health services to their children as by the univariate analysis 0.3% of the students agreed to ever receiving sexual and reproductive health information from their parents and health centers offer information to majority of the students which explains recent efforts of government through the ministry of health to provide sexual and reproductive health information to all citizens of the country through health education, promotion and policy. Majority of the students have ever engaged in sexual activities and at most at the age of 10-14 years where as only 31.7% of the students who participated in the study have ever used any sexual and reproductive health service. This according to the study is due to the long waiting times of at most one hour to see a health worker which demoralises these students to uptake sexual and reproductive health services. | en_US |
