Parental communication on sexual and reproductive health issues to their adolescents and affecting factors at Asella town, Ethiopia: a community-based, cross-sectional study

Abstract

Background Parents’ communication on sexual and reproductive health issues with their adolescent plays a great role in preventing morbidity and mortality associated with sexual behavior. However lack of parent to adolescent communication was a serious problem in Ethiopia resulted in teenage pregnancy, unsafe abortions, sexually transmitted infections, school problems, and other sexual risk behaviors. Parents have high responsibility on cultivating their son and daughter regarding to sexual and reproductive health issues. Therefore, the objective of this study was to determine the magnitude of parent’s communication with their adolescents and affecting factors in Ethiopia. Methods A community-based, cross-sectional study was conducted on 347 respondents. A systematic sampling method was used to select the study participants. Data were collected by trained interviewers using a structured questionnaire, entered into Epi-Info version 7.1.2 and exported to SPSS version 23 for analysis. Descriptive statistics, bivariate and multivariate logistic regression analyses were used. Variables at P-value < 0.05 were considered as significant associations. Results Slightly more than one-fifth of the parents (21.3%) had communicated with their adolescents on sexual and reproductive health issues. Associated factors like: being knowledgeable [AOR = 3.08, 95% CI: 1.89–5.39] and being having positive attitudes [AOR 3.03, 95% CI: 1.37–6.70] towards sexual reproductive health issues were significantly associated with communication. Conclusion Overall a low proportion of parental communication with their children was identified on sexual and reproductive health issues. This was affected by multidimensional factors to determine their discussion. Thus, promotion of parent to adolescent communication, parents training and addressing the importance of parent to young people communication along with health care providers was important.

Parent-Adolescent Communication on Sexual and Reproductive Health: Perceptions and Experiences of Out-Of-School Adolescent Mothers in the East Gonja Municipality, Ghana

“…This was due to lack of confidence on the part of the adolescent to bring up such conversations. Similar observations were made in studies in SSA; Ethiopia (Bekele et al, 2022;Wudineh et al, 2021), and rural Tanzania (Wamoyi et al, 2010), and reflects the traditional norms in Africa which tend to prevent adolescents from engaging in such conversations perceived to be meant for adults, and branding adolescents who tend to show interest in these conversations as lacking good moral values or not properly brought up by their parents.…”

“…Adolescence is a special developmental period often associated with diverse sexual and reproductive health (SRH) risks (Pichon et al, 2022). The World Health Organization (WHO) defines an adolescent as an individual aged 10 to 19 years (Bekele et al, 2022), and describes this period as a rapid and formative phase of human development (Malango et al, 2022). While transitioning from childhood to adulthood, adolescents undergo distinctive physical, cognitive, emotional, and sexual developmental changes which require special attention and consideration in both local and national policy and programme development (Malango et al, 2022).…”

“…A growing body of evidence shows that adolescents, particularly girls who are engage in a healthy parent-child communications on SRH (e.g. sex, sexuality, contraception, and sexually transmitted infections (STIs)) at an early age are more likely to learn or adopt safe sexual behaviors, including abstinence and protective behaviors that prevent pregnancy and STIs (Bekele et al, 2022). In a recent study, good parentadolescent SRH communication was found to have a positive correlation with good adolescent mental health, educational, and developmental outcomes (Pichon et al, 2022).…”

Female body image and prevention of sexually transmitted infections

“…As interações e os conflitos entre adolescentes e respectiva família contribuem para organizar e reorganizar o ambiente familiar, influenciando diretamente a tomada de decisão em relação à saúde dos envolvidos, em que tanto a ausência quanto o excesso de autoridade na relação entre adolescentes e pais podem gerar medo e insegurança, possibilitando a adoção de comportamentos de risco à saúde (17) .…”

Atuação Multidisplinar Na Promoção Da Saúde

“…Adicionalmente, durante esse período, também foram realizadas atividades mensais com os pais e/ou responsáveis dos alunos, com a promoção de palestras, rodas de conversa, a fim de contribuir com a melhoria do aprendizado dos estudantes do Colégio Técnico de Teresina e integrar os pais e/ou responsáveis ao meio escolar dos filhos, assim como a promoção da comunicação parento-filial, dado que a comunicação entre pais e filhos é efetiva na prevenção de morbimortalidade relacionada ao comportamento sexual (BEKELE et al, 2022) (Figura 4). Diante disso, é notório o trabalho em conjunto entre família, escola e profissionais da saúde, com a finalidade de promoção da saúde sexual na adolescência (DANZMANN et al, 2022).…”