Abstract
Most young person will become sexually active before their 20th birthday having to battle with early and unplanned pregnancies, unsafe abortions, maternal deaths and injuries. This study examined young person’s sexual knowledge, attitudes and practices and their levels of utilization of sexual reproductive health. Our study progresses beyond current research of reporting only sexual behaviour among youth to have insight into sexual and reproductive health update drivers yielding new empirically robust results for the Ghanaian case for sexual and reproductive health service uptake. The descriptively cross sectional design was employed in sampling 170 youth (150 surveyed and 20 Interviewed) using the stratified sampling technique together with a purposive selection of one key informant. Test of significance and associations were performed with the Chisquare test. In all 45.2% (77/170) of youth (10 - 24) had had sexual experience in life time. In respect of in-school youth, 42% (63/150) had had sexual experience whiles 70% (14/20) out-of-school youth had had sexual intercourse in life time. A total of 28.8% (49/170) of all the youth had sexual intercourse in the last six months with only 40.1 (20/49) using condom for protection. Parental discussion of contraceptive methods (29.3%) and sexual and romantic relationship (28.0%) was the least sexual and reproductive health area discussed among in-school youth. Youth knowledge of the available sexual reproductive health service was statistically associated with reproductive health service utilization (X2 = 0.00, P ≤ 0.05). A concerted effort is required from government, NGO, Civil society organizations and religious bodies to help translate youth knowledge about sexual health into responsible sexual life and protective sex.
Highlights
Young people can be defined as those aged 10 - 24 years, and this group combines adolescents-aged 10 - 19 years- and youth-aged 15 - 24 years [1]
With a reported human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) prevalence in general population in Ghana standing at 1.37% in 2012, the Ghana AIDS Commission and others together with the Ghana Health Service submits that prevalence for the age group 15 - 19 years in 2013 stood at 0.7% and that among young people 15 - 24 years, which is used a proxy for new infections, it represented 1.3% while young person’s 15 - 24 years of age contributed 28% (2044 of 7323), (2236 of 7991) for 2012 and 2013 respectively of new infections showing no reduction in new infections [2]-[5]
The study was towards assessing youth knowledge, attitude and sexual practice and reproductive health service utilization informed by a cross sectional qualitative and quantitative design
Summary
Young people can be defined as those aged 10 - 24 years, and this group combines adolescents-aged 10 - 19 years- and youth-aged 15 - 24 years [1]. The Ghana Health Service [2] report reveals that the prevalence rate of HIV/AIDs in Ghana between the age group of 15 to 24 years accounted for 3.4% as in 2002. With a reported HIV prevalence in general population in Ghana standing at 1.37% in 2012, the Ghana AIDS Commission and others together with the Ghana Health Service submits that prevalence for the age group 15 - 19 years in 2013 stood at 0.7% and that among young people 15 - 24 years, which is used a proxy for new infections, it represented 1.3% while young person’s 15 - 24 years of age contributed 28% (2044 of 7323), (2236 of 7991) for 2012 and 2013 respectively of new infections showing no reduction in new infections [2]-[5]. According to Homans, the habits and lifestyles that are established during this period have a profound effect on future health and development [11]
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