Parent and adolescent communication about sex and birth control in Mangochi district.
Adolescent represent a special group in a society. The status of their reproductive health has many physical, social and demographic ramifications in a society. Despite parental advices on abstinence and government's effort to combat early and unwanted pregnancy through introduction of youth f...
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| Format: | Other |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Kamuzu University of Health Sciences
2022
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| Online Access: | http://nkhokwe.kuhes.ac.mw/handle/20.500.12845/133 |
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Add Tag | Summary: | Adolescent represent a special group in a society. The status of their reproductive health has many physical, social and demographic ramifications in a society. Despite parental advices on abstinence and government's effort to combat early and unwanted pregnancy through introduction of youth friendly health services, a lot of the adolescents still contract premarital pregnancies. Parents play a key role in shaping adolescent behaviors, and parent- child communication, has been identified as an important factor in preventing early and risky sexual behavior. The purpose of the study aimed to explore Parent and Adolescent Communication about Sex and Birth control in Mangochi district. This was an exploratory study of communication between parents and adolescents on sex and birth control in Mangochi. Data was collected from consenting five parents and five adolescents through in-depth interviews. Data analysis was done manually according to identified major themes using descriptive content analysis of qualitative research.
Results revealed that most parents exposed their children to sex education at puberty. The discussion still remains advising them to abstain from sex in order to prevent pregnancy and STDs. Parents in Mangochi apart from abstinence they neither discuss with their children about birth controls nor allow their adolescents to use the birth controls because they have fear that adolescent use of birth controls will promote promiscuity, infertility and some other diseases like uterine fibroids. However, the level sex and birth control communication was very unsatisfactory to the adolescents because the topic remained largely on abstinence. Adolescent wished their parents could become the most reliable source of birth control information. Adolescent still reported that they get information on birth controls from friends, media, school of which it's not clearly understood to them and at the end they get confused with the information of which they don't utilize. They need parental support, consent and involvement on birth controls
In conclusion improving open parent-adolescent communication and parents' communication skills on adolescent use of birth controls can promote prevention of unwanted and early pregnancy among adolescents. There is need to conduct a national survey in Malawi to gather enough evidence. |
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