Attitude of adolescent school students towards reproductive health education

INTRODUCTION

Until a few years ago, most schools and parents equated Reproductive Health Education (RHE) with sex education and believed that it was a sure tool to corrupt the young adolescent and should therefore be avoided. However, increasing high-risk behaviour among the adolescents and more permissive popular mass media has led many to believe that it is not the question of should RHE be taught, but rather how it should be taught. Increased teenage pregnancies and indulgences of the adolescent in smoking, alcohol intake and drug use have necessitated that the adolescent should learn ways to avoid peer pressure, need to understand more about their responsibilities in marriage and as parents, preparation for childbirth, etc. and lead a more productive & healthy life.¹

Sexual & reproductive health education is an educational experience that develops the capacity of adolescents to understand their sexuality in the context of biological, psychological, socio-cultural and reproductive dimensions and to acquire skills in managing responsible decisions and actions with regard to Sexual & Reproductive Health behavior.² Sexual & Reproductive Health education aims to achieve a range of behavioural and health outcomes, including reduced sexual activity (including postponing age at first intercourse and promoting abstinence); reduced number of sexual partners; increased contraceptive use (especially use of condoms among adolescents who are sexually active, for dual protection); lower rates of child marriage; lower rates of early, unwanted pregnancy and resulting abortions; lower rates of infection with HIV and other sexually transmitted infections (STIs); and improved nutritional status3.

Thus the adolescents particularly in the age group of 15-19 yrs. need to be provided with correct scientific information to develop healthy attitude towards Reproductive Health. This study was therefore undertaken to find out attitude of adolescent school students towards Reproductive Health Education and to identify communication pattern regarding reproductive health issue in Solapur city.

METHODS

The present cross-sectional study was carried out on Adolescent Higher Secondary School Students in Solapur city, India. Those schools having all streams (arts, commerce and science) were sorted out and one school was selected by using simple random sampling technique. A written permission was obtained from the Principal of School before conducting the study. Data was collected with the help of pre-tested & self-administered Questionnaire. We assumed 50% proportion with 95 % confidence interval with error of 5% to determine the maximum sample size. The total sample size worked out to be 384 but in the present study 500 students were included. Students from one division of 11th and 12th standard of each stream (Arts, commerce and science) were included in the study.

RESULTS

Out of 500 students, 211(42.2%) were girls and 289 (57.8%) were boys. Most of the students (88.4%) were in age group of 16 to 18 years. Overall student’s mean age was 16.93 year.

Students attitude regarding family size, premarital sex & compulsory family planning

Table 1 shows that 57.2% students preferred one child as ideal family size while 42.6% student preferred two children and only 0.4% student preferred more than two children as ideal family size. Majority (85.8%) of students were against premarital sex while 7.6% had a neutral attitude and only 6.6% students were in favour of premarital sex. 84.2% students were of opinion that family planning should be made compulsory, 6.8% students were against it and 9% students were of undecided view.

Students attitude regarding reproductive health education

Majority (84.8%) of students recommended Reproductive health education in syllabus while very few (5.8%) students were against it. Higher Secondary level was the preferred stage of schooling to introduce RHE suggested by 61% students, secondary stage of schooling by 22.8% students and primary stage of schooling by only 22% students (Table 2).

DISCUSSION

In present study, student’s attitude towards acceptance of small family norm was positive as almost all students (99.6%) favoured small family norm. Other studies^4,5,6 also reported that most of the adolescent participants were in favour of small family. Students also had healthy attitude toward premarital sex as majority of them were of the opinion that it is not correct to have premarital sex and also were of opinion that family planning should be made compulsory. Verma et al⁷ in their study reported that respondent’s attitude towards pre-marital sex was negative with only 5.2% respondents believing in it while 3.3% were in different.

In this study students had favourable attitude towards RHE as majority (84.8%) of them recommended RHE in school curriculum. Similar observations were also noted in other studies^7,8,9 indicating need of RHE in school curriculum. Introduction of RHE at Higher Secondary level was suggested by 61% students. But as period of adolescence start at Secondary School level it will be more appropriate to introduce RHE at Secondary School level.

Lecture by expert was first choice as a desired method of impacting RHE for both boys and girls this suggests that students favoured scientific approach towards Reproductive Health. Bhasin et al¹⁰ in their study reported that school teacher and doctors were considered by 69.4% and 63.6% of the respondent respectively to be the most appropriate person for providing sex education.

In the present study, 52.4% of students preferred to communicate with Doctor / Health Worker regarding Reproductive Health issues this was followed by Friends. Sonia Singh¹¹ in her study also noted that friends (57%) were the primary source of consultation (communication) for physical problem related to reproductive health. Hence friends can play a role of peer educator for providing scientific information about Reproductive Health.

CONCLUSION

In our study, we found that student’s had healthy & positive attitude towards reproductive health issues like ideal family size, premarital sex and family planning. Majority of students recommended Reproductive Health Education in school curriculum and lecture by experts was mentioned as desired method for imparting RHE by about half of the students. Most of the students preferred to communicate with Doctor / Health Worker followed by friends regarding Reproductive Health Issues. There is need of providing correct scientific information regarding reproductive health to adolescents by incorporating reproductive health education in school curriculum and by evolving appropriate communication strategies like peer education & lecture by experts.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I express my gratitude to Department of PSM, Dr. VMGMC, Solapur, India for support and guidance throughout the study. I am very much thankful to the School Principal and participant students for allowing me to conduct the study.

Funding: No funding sources

Conflict of interest: None declared

Ethical approval: The study was approved by the Institutional Ethics Committee

REFERENCES

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