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Identify Traditional
Communication Strategies for Reaching Rural Adolescents with Reproductive
Health Information: A qualitative Study
Principal Investigator
: Ms. Paulina
Tindana
Co-Investigators
: Ms. Matilda
Aberese and Dr. Cornelius Debpuur
Funding
: Bill and
Melinda Gates Institute for Population and Reproductive Health, Baltimore, USA
Project Summary
Adolescent Sexual and Reproductive Health (ASRH) has gained
increased prominence globally with the focus in recent years on the HIV/AIDS
pandemic and its effect on the youth, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa. Although
several intervention activities have been carried out for adolescents in the
region, most activities have been designed to suit in-school and urban
adolescents. Empirical studies suggest that although most adolescents will
prefer to receive more information on sexual and reproductive health from their
parents and guardians, this is not the case in practice (Navrongo Adolescent
Sexual and Reproductive Health project report, 2004; Leshabari and Kaaya, 1997).
This means that there is a huge gap in communication between parents and
adolescents, which needs to be filled. Our proposed research has two phases: the
first involves a qualitative exploratory component to explore the levels of
reproductive health knowledge among adolescents and their parents, ways in which
these communications occur between them, barriers to communication for both
groups as well as opportunities and ideas to improve communication between
them. The second phase will involve an intervention study to test whether
improving communication between adolescents and their parents will increase the
sexual and reproductive health knowledge of adolescents as well as influence
their behaviors to prevent adverse outcomes.
The main objective of the
proposed study is to assess the barriers to parent-adolescent communication and
explore viable avenues for increasing parent-adolescent communication from both
the adolescent perspective and the parents’ perspective. As a second objective,
the study is concerned with a needs assessment in terms of reproductive health
knowledge and services rural adolescents lack. Specifically, this study assesses
knowledge of basic
information on reproductive health among rural adolescents and their parents,
examines gender roles at the household level and how they affect access to
information for male and female adolescents, and identifies effective strategies
for improving communication between adolescents and their parents/guardians at
the household level.
This qualitative study
involves face-to-face semi-structured interviews as well as focus group
discussions with rural out of school adolescents and parents in the
Kassena-Nankana District of Northern Ghana. The interviews assess reproductive
health knowledge related to pregnancy, sexually transmitted diseases (including
HIV/AIDS), decision-making structures at the household level, and identification
of sources of information as well as perceptions and recommendations on how to
improve communication on sexual and reproductive health between parents and
adolescents.
This research will offer
valuable information on effective ways of reaching rural adolescents with sexual
and reproductive health information. The findings will also provide important
data on the needs of rural adolescents, thereby deepening our understanding of
the challenges that rural adolescents face. It will also provide some
recommendations on how to improve communication at the household level to ensure
that adolescents receive sexual and reproductive health information early and
continually from their parents/guardians.
Ethics approval has been obtained from
The NHRC-Institutional Review
Board.
Person to whom correspondence should be addressed:
Ms. Paulina Onvomaha Tindana
Navrongo Health Research
Centre
Ministry of Health
PO Box 114
Navrongo, Ghana,
Phone: +233 74 22310, Fax:
+233 742 22320
ptindana@navrongo.mimcom.net
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