Empowerment of Youth Information and Counseling Center (PIK-R) for Early Marriage Independence among Adolescent Girls

Abstract

Introduction: Early marriage may compromise the reproductive health of adolescent girls. Youth empowerment through the Youth Information and Counseling Center (PIK-R) needs to be done, in order to increase awareness of adolescent girls about their reproductive right. This study aimed to analyze the effect of empowering the Youth Information and Counseling Center (PIK-R) group using the Emo Demo method on early marriage independence among adolescent girls.Method: Design of this study used a quasi-experimental design with one group pretest-posttest design. Thirty adolescent girls from The Youth Information and Counseling Center (PIK-R) group were selected by simple random sampling. The research variables were the Emo Demo method and early marriage independence. Research instruments used Emo Demo module and questionnaire of early marriage independence from the previos study by Purwanti et al. The data were analyzed descriptively to determine the frequency distribution of early marriage independence before and after the intervention. Furthermore, data analysis used Wilcoxon Signed Ranks Test to assess the effect of youth empowerment through the Youth Information and Counseling Center (PIK-R) among adolescent girls. Results: The result of this analysis showed that the empowerment of Youth Information and Counseling Center (PIK-R) group using the Emo-Demo method have a significant impact on the early marriage independence among adolescent girls with p=0.001. Conclusions: Empowerment of the Youth Information and Counseling Center (PIK-R) group using the Emo-Demo method increases awareness of the potential that adolescents have and the desire to develop it so that they can achieve independence. Keywords: empowerment, adolescent, marriage, PIK-R(Youth Information And Counseling center)