Barriers of Discussion Concerning Sexual and Reproductive Health Issues Among Adolescents and Parents, Hawassa, SNNPR, Ethiopia

Abstract

Background: Adolescence is a period of high developmental changes in physical, mental and social conditions. In this period the adolescent youth fails to control their emotions, listen to parents’ advice and begins to indulge them in unhealthy behavioral activities. In general, the age group from 10 to 19 years is classified as adolescent. Many adolescents often lack strong and stable relationships with their parents to openly discuss about reproductive health concerns. Similarly, about 55.7% of the secondary and preparatory school students were not discussed on SRH issues. Objective: To assess the barriers of discussion among adolescents concerning sexual and reproductive health issues among Preparatory Schools students of Hawassa City, SNNPR, Ethiopia. Methods: - Descriptive cross sectional survey design was conducted among Addis Ketema and Tabor preparatory schools students in Hawassa City, from December to June 2016. Then a multistage sampling technique was employed to select 344 eligible study participants, the data were collected by using closed ended questionnaire and analyzed. Result: - The majority (61%) of respondents did not discused sexual matters with their parents. The results of binary logistic regression revealed that, the adolescents who follow social media (B=1.497, p< 0.05), use condom (B=2.296, p< 0.05), father education (B=2.398, p< 0.05) and mother education (B=1.582, p< 0.05) have positive and significant effect on discussion between the parents and adolescents on SRH issues. Culture of adolescents and parents regarding sex related issues whereas, ever had experienced sexual pleasure (B=-1.466, p< 0.01), amount of money the adolescent got monthly (B= -2.127, p< 0.01), talk to friend about sex related issues(B=-2.361, p< 0.01), and feel shame to talk to family about sex related issues (B=-0.868, p< 0.05) have negative and significant effect on discussion between the adolescents and parents regarding sex related issues. Conclusion: The major factors that hindered parent-adolescent discussion were ever had experienced sexual pleasure, follow social media, use condom, parent education, amount of money given to adolescents, talk to friends about sex related issue, and feel shame. Furthermore, parents had limited access to sexuality information which could perpetuate beliefs, taboos and negative attitudes that hindered them from discussing sexual matters with adolescents. Keywords: Adolescent; Barriers; Discussion Introduction