Education counseling to prevent early marriage in adolescents in Desa Sukamakmur, Jember

Abstract

Child marriage is a formal or informal union between a child under 18 years old and an adult or another child. The prevalence of child marriage in Indonesia is still high. In East Java, the prevalence of child marriage is 10,44%. Several factors contribute to this phenomenon, such as low education, financial needs, culture, arranged marriage, free sex, and pregnancy before marriage. Child marriage has many negative impacts, especially from the health perspective, because of an adolescent's immature reproductive organs, knowledge, and mentality. This study aims to analyze the effect of counseling on adolescent knowledge about child marriage and reproductive health at SMP Plus Al-Ishlah and SMK Multi-Media, Jember. The method used in this study was Pre-Experimental with One Group Pre-test - Post-test research design. The population in this study were students of SMP Plus Al-Ishlah and SMK Multi-Media, totaling 131 students. The number of samples is 80 respondents. The sampling technique used was random sampling. The data was collected using a questionnaire. The research results show a significant difference in the level of adolescent knowledge after counseling about child marriage and reproductive health at SMP Plus Al-Ishlah and SMK Multi-Media. It is proven by p-value 0,001 ≤ α 0,05. This study concludes that counseling increases adolescent knowledge about child marriage and reproductive health. There is an increase in knowledge on reproductive organ anatomy, how to maintain the health of reproductive organs, sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), and HIV/AIDS.