PARENT-ADOLESCENT COMMUNICATION ON SEXUAL AND REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH ISSUES AND ITS ASSOCIATED FACTORS AMONG SECODARY AND PREPARATORY SCHOOL STUDENTS IN WOLKITE TOWN, ETHIOIPIA, 2023

Abstract

Background: Adolescence is a transition between childhoods to adulthood period. Parents’ communication on sexual and reproductive health issues with their adolescent plays a great role in preventing morbidity and mortality associated with sexual behavior. However lack of parent to adolescent communication was a serious problem in Ethiopia resulted in teenage pregnancy, unsafe abortions, sexually transmitted infections, school problems, and other sexual risk behaviors. Parents have high responsibility on cultivating their son and daughter regarding to sexual and reproductive health issues. Therefore; parent and adolescent communication about sexual and reproductive health issue is important to reduce such risky sexual behaviors. Objective: To asses parent-adolescent communication on sexual & reproductive health issues and its associated factor among secondary & preparatory school students in Wolkite, Ethiopia, 2023 Methods: Institutional based cross-sectional study was employed from May 8 to May 22, 2023 among 359 high school students in Wolkite town. Stratified sampling technique together with simple random sampling technique after proportional allocation was employed to select study participants. The data were entered into Epi-data version 4.6 and analyzed using SPSS version 25 & descriptive statistical analysis was used to compute frequency, percentage and mean for independent & dependent variable. Finally, bi-variable & multi variable logistic regression analysis was computed to assess for strength of association. Result: A Total of 359 adolescents were involved in the study making 100% response rate. 220 (61.3%) of students had good communication with their parents on sexual and reproductive health issues. Students with parents’ educational status of primary and above ( AOR=1.89 ;95%CI;1.16- 3.12) and those living with both of their parents(AOR=2.02; 95% CI;1.04 -3.85) were more likely to communicate on Sexual and reproductive health issues. Conclusion and recommendation: This study showed that poor parent - Adolescent communication on sexual and reproductive health issues was a prevalent problem of adolescents and those who lived with both of parent and parents’ educational status were identified to be factors associated with it. Schools and other concerned bodies regarding sexuality issues should focus on students who live alone or with only one parents and on provision of information for those having parents with low educational status.