Accessibility of Adolescents to Sources of Information on Sexual and Reproductive Health

Abstract

Introduction: adolescence is a phase that entails biopsychosocial changes with specific emotional and behavioral impact on sexual and reproductive health of both sexes. The World Health Organization considers adolescents to be the ages from 10 to 19 years. Chronologically this is important for epidemiological research, for development of public health policies , to define programs and specific actions for this audience. The concern with the sexual and reproductive health of adolescents is due to early onset of sexual activity, which contributes to expose these young people to the risks of unplanned pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases. Objective: to identify the sources of information used by adolescents in public schools about sexuality and reproduction. Methods: descriptive quantitative study. There were 90 Semi-structured interviews applied to adolescents with predominant age between 16 and 19 years old from the second year of high school in a Public School located in the urban periphery of a capital in the northeast of Brazil. Results: it was observed that the adolescents of this study has a relatively high accessibility to the educational activities in the area of sexual and reproductive health. The school was the main area cited by the participants of the study. As for the search for information on the subject, friends are the most sought after by adolescents. Afterwards, the most often cited are family members. The majority of the adolescents said that the source of information most sought was television (35.5%), followed by the internet, books and magazines. Contraception was practiced by only 14 (36.9%) of the adolescents.

Realities and perspectives of adolescent mothers in their first pregnancy

“…Although the literature recognizes school as an important space for sexual and reproductive education (19) , adolescents demonstrate that they receive information about sexual and reproductive health, mainly through friends, the media and family (16)(17)(18)(19) .…”

Vulnerability of adolescents to sexually transmissible diseases in primary care

“…Studies have characterized the profile of adolescents with STD/AIDS through analysis of socioeconomic factors to substantiate and deepen the knowledge related to this indicative. [14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25] Also, there are additional situations such as structural, family and sexual violence, involvement with drugs, sexual promiscuity, and cultural issues that expose young people to STD/AIDS. 16,24 The social environment where adolescents live, whether in the home or at school, tends to influence their behavior and sometimes leads to situations that compromise their health.…”

“…17 Most of the articles deal with adolescents with low social conditions, although some articles address students from private schools belonging to the white race, with high education level and adequate housing conditions. 16,25 The low socioeconomic-educational level characterizes the profile of many adolescents who become infected with STDs, and lack of communication, access to services and, in some cases, racial discrimination are linked to vulnerability. 3, [26][27] Therefore, the authors suggest that disinformation about condom use is often linked to social issues.…”

Sexting: percepções de adolescentes sobre o fenômeno e acerca do papel das relações familiares

“…Além disso, houve discrepância na percepção entre os pais e os adolescentes no sentido de que, para os pais, seria suficiente apenas mencionar de forma diretiva certos tópicos sobre sexualidade, enquanto a expectativa dos filhos era de que eles discutissem valores e dinâmicas de experiências sexuais. Isso talvez explique porque os amigos e a internet são as maiores fontes de informação sobre sexualidade entre os adolescentes (Gondim et al, 2015), o que aponta para a possibilidade de o uso das tecnologias ser mediador dessa troca de informações. Visto que as famílias ainda têm dificuldades em abordar o tema sexualidade com seus filhos é importante investigar como, em relação ao sexting, a comunicação entre pais e filhos intermediaria o envolvimento destes no fenômeno.…”