Access to Sexual and Reproductive Health Information among Female Adolescents in Selected Senior High Schools in the Lower Manya Krobo Municipality, Ghana

Abstract

Background: Female adolescents are unduly disadvantaged regarding the risks of unintended pregnancies that are associated with poor outcomes which often results in infant or maternal death. This study sought to explore factors that influence female adolescents’ knowledge level of their sexual and reproductive health (SHR) information in the Lower Manya Krobo Municipality in the Eastern Region of Ghana.

Methods: A cross-sectional school-based study was conducted using a self-administered structured questionnaire. A purposive sampling method was used to select a total of 336 respondents from four Senior High Schools in the municipality to participate in the survey. Data obtained was analyzed using descriptive statistics, bivariate analysis, and a multivariate logistic regression.

Results: Findings from this study revealed that the majority of the students had good access to SRH information where the teacher and the media play a crucial role as a source of information. Contrary to the good access to health information, the majority (39.29%) of the respondents demonstrated a low level of comprehensive knowledge. The result from the analysis further revealed that 28.57% of the respondents admitting to being involved in sexual intercourse with 48.96% registering the use of contraceptive at the time of the study. A Pearson’s chi-square test for association revealed that there is a significant statistical association between the respondent’s access to SRH information with some of their demographic characteristics and their main sources of information based on a predetermined p-value lower than 0.05. Respondents exposed to social media as information source were found to be nine times more likely to have access to SRH information compared to their counterparts, after adjusting for all other covariates.

Conclusion: Sexual and reproductive health information is accessible to female adolescents but they lack an adequate level of comprehensive knowledge, therefore, an effective education and communication program is required to contribute towards the understanding of communicated messages. Additionally, the data reveal that the sources of information are associated with the respondents’ level of knowledge.