Reproductive health knowledge, attitude and health services utilization among adolescent in Kaski District

Abstract

Introduction: Adolescent reproductive health has become a great concern today due to increasing rate of unwanted pregnancy, unsafe abortion and sexually transmitted disease. Hence, the objective of the study was to assess the reproductive health knowledge, attitude and health services utilization among adolescents in rural and urban areas of Kaski district.

Methods: A community based cross-sectional study was conducted among 419 adolescents (10-19 years of age) in rural and urban areas of Kaski district, Nepal. Multistage stratified random sampling technique was used to select required number of participants.

Results: Out of 419, majority (78.8%) of the respondents were known about family planning, among them only 70.0% of respondents were aware about family planning methods. Fifty-one percentages of the respondents were aware about the sexually transmitted diseases. Nearly twenty-six percentage of the respondents faced the reproductive health problems within one month. Out of 107 respondents, 57.9% did not utilize reproductive health services.

Conclusion: The overall level of knowledge towards reproductive health among adolescents was found low. However, levels of attitude towards different reproductive health components were found favorable. Only 42.1% of the respondents utilized reproductive health services among those who faced the reproductive health problems within one month.