Sexual and reproductive health needs of adolescent girls from conservative and low-income families in Erzurum, Turkey

Abstract

The objective of this survey was to determine the sexual and reproductive health needs of conservative and/or economically challenged adolescent girls. A total of 310 subjects (16.5 ± 2.2 years old), attending three private institutes teaching Islamic matter and the holy Quran and two private institutes teaching carpet-weaving in Erzurum, Turkey, were interviewed between November 2004 and February 2005. The questionnaire covered knowledge on reproductive health and sexual matters to attain their feelings prior to their first menarche, their practices during menstruation, and their awareness of gynecological and sexually transmitted diseases as well as their attitudes toward and responsiveness to domestic violence. Their responses showed that these issues were considered taboo and/or embarrassing to share. Also, a considerable percentage of the girls had no or limited knowledge on reproductive health and sexual matters and mismanaged gynecological problems and domestic violence. Moreover, those had knowledge revealed that their sources were non-scientific information from unprofessional individuals. In conclusion, the conservative and/or economically challenged adolescent girls who are not attending regular high schools need professional lectures on reproductive health and sexual matters.

Mapping the Knowledge and Understanding of Menarche, Menstrual Hygiene and Menstrual Health Among Adolescent Girls in Low- and Middle-Income Countries

“…Compared to girls residing in urban parts of Ethiopia [21] and India [22], those in rural settings reported their mothers as an information source less often (possibly because there were other female relatives they could turn to). Following mothers, sisters were the next most common resource in four Indian states [1,11,12,23], Mexico [24], Nepal [25], Nigeria [20,26], Pakistan [6], and Turkey [27], though they were utilized by less than a quarter of girls. In some contexts, sisters and friends surpassed mothers as the primary source of information [6,13,28,29].…”

“…A majority of studies which examined the roles of teachers and/or health professionals as providers of menstrual information ranked them as the least common sources compared to female relatives and friends (Egypt [30], Ghana [31], India [1,7,11,12,15,[32][33][34][35], Jordan [36], Malaysia [37][38][39], Nepal [25], Nigeria [14,20,26,[40][41][42], Sri Lanka [43], and Turkey [27].) Teachers were cited as a source by less than 5.0% of girls questioned in three Indian states [1,32,33], Nepal [25], and Sri Lanka [43].…”

“…At most, a quarter of study participants in urban Nigeria cited health professionals as a source [41]. Some studies reported mass media, such as radio, television, newspapers, magazines, books, and the Internet either as the only resource available to girls or as supplements to other sources of information (Egypt [30,44,45], Ghana [31], India [15,29,32,34,35,46], Jordan [36], Malaysia [37-39, 47, 48], Nepal [25], Nigeria [40][41][42], Sri Lanka [43], and Turkey [2,27]). In a few instances, such sources were reported by more than a quarter of girls: 72.4% in Nigeria [41], 92.2% in Egypt [30], and 29.2-43.6% in Malaysia [37,38,47,48].…”

Development of a Scale to Measure Reproductive Health Promoting Behavior of Undergraduates

“…성경험이 있는 대학생 10%는 성병 감염 경험이 있고 (Lee, 2003), 17.7%는 임신경험, 그 중 88.5%는 낙태수술을 한 적 이 있는 것으로 보고되었다 (Kang, 2012) (Reis, Kilic, Engin, & Karabulutlu, 2011), 성경험이나 피임 실천여부와 같은 성행동 경험 (Pinar & Taşkin, 2011;Shin et al, 2010), 생식기 관리 (Kim, Kim, & Kwon, 2008), 월경통, 월경규칙성, 월경기간, 자연 ⋅인공유산 경험 등의 생식기 건강수준(Hong, Lee, & Rhee, 2006)과 금연⋅금주⋅운동 및 충분한 영양섭취와 같 은 생식건강 관련 행동에 대한 연구들이 있으며 (Ahn et al, 2008;Shin et al, 2010), 생식건강 태도에 대한 연구들도 진 행되고 있다 (Nemčić et al, 2005;Saydam et al, 2010). …”

The effect of providing educational sessions about sexually transmitted diseases on knowledge and attitudes of secondary school students at Zagazig City

“…[4] Additionally, adolescent sexual and reproductive health education is still a neglected issue in many countries, especially the adolescents from the rural part of the developing countries due to unavailability of reproductive health care services and trainings. [5] Sexually Transmitted Diseases are a major health problem that affects mostly young people, not only in developing but also in developed countries. [6] It refers to a variety of clinical syndromes and infections caused by pathogens that can be acquired and transmitted through sexual activity from one person to another.…”