KNOWLEDGE OF REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH AMONG ADOLESCENT GIRLS AT KHULNA CITY CORPORATION AREA IN BANGLADESH

Abstract

Inadequate knowledge regarding reproductive health among adolescent girls is a common scenario in Bangladesh which affects adversely on safe motherhood in future. For this reason the study focused on analyzing the knowledge about reproductive health among adolescent girls in Khulna City Corporation (KCC) area. This study tried to find out the level of their knowledge about components of reproductive health which consisted of knowledge about contraceptives, sexually transmitted diseases, menstruation, safe motherhood, abortion and receiving health care services among adolescent girls. Five schools of Ward no. 16 in Khulna City Corporation (KCC) were selected purposively as the study area. The study was explanatory in nature and survey method had been used to conduct this study. Girls of aged 11 to 16 years old, students of class seven to class ten, had been selected as respondents and 200 samples from 414 population were selected using stratified random sampling procedure. Interview technique has been used to collect data from June to August, 2018 through interview schedule. The study revealed that the average age of the respondents was 14.48 years and most of the cases (92 percent) got information about reproductive health from their mother. Additionally, regarding knowledge about components of reproductive health majority of the respondents had medium knowledge about contraceptives, sexually transmitted diseases, menstruation, safe motherhood, receiving health care services except abortion as most of them (41.5 percent) responded low knowledge about it. Besides, the age structure had no impact on access to information about reproductive health (p >0.502) but there was statistically significant (p<0.000) relationship between age of the respondents and knowledge about components of reproductive health. Furthermore, knowledge about reproductive health did not vary with their religious views (p >0.318) but age, year of schooling year of schooling of household head, access to information and importance of source of information were related with knowledge about reproductive health. Finally, the study generalized that age, year of schooling, availability of information and preference of source of information pave the way for knowledge about reproductive health.