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ABSTRACT
Objectives: To assess the reproductive health knowledge, attitude and perception of school going adolescent girls of 16-18 years in urban and rural areas of south Kerala.
Method: Cross sectional random survey was conducted among 1059 adolescent girls of 16-18 years, from five urban and five rural schools in Thiruvananthapuram District of Kerala. Statistical analysis was done using mean, percentages and Chi-square test.
Results: Mean reproductive health knowledge of urban adolescents was 18.75 with a standard deviation of 5.02 (55.1% of the total) and rural 17.08 with a standard deviation of 4.8 (50.2% of the total). Only 14.7% of urban and 8.9 % of rural adolescents interacted about the reproductive health issues to their teachers. 83% of the adolescent girls agreed for the need to include reproductive health topic in the school curriculum. The results of the study had shown that the basic knowledge and awareness of late adolescent girls towards reproductive health was not satisfactory both in urban and rural areas, but urban girls were far better than rural girls. This study has also identified the fact that students were not discussing about their reproductive health doubts to teachers.
Keywords: Reproductive Health, Adolescent, Rural, Urban, Sexually Transmitted Disease
INTRODUCTION
Countrywide information on adolescent (10-19 years) sexual behavior is not available. Sexually Transmitted Infections (STI's), including HIV (Human Immunodeficiency Virus) mainly affects sexually active young people. Young adults aged 15-29 years account for 32% of AIDS (Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome). Isolated studies from varies part of India (1_4) have shown that adolescents do not have enough reproductive health knowledge. Even though Kerala is a highly literate state only few studies(3,7) have been reported in the area of the reproductive health. Reproductive health education in schools of Kerala is a matter of controversy. Media reports of kerala have shown that sexual abuse among adolescent girls is high. Insufficient or wrong knowledge of adolescent girls about reproductive health may lead to a situation where the adolescents are being sexually abused. Policy makers do not have baseline data from previous studies to plan for adolescent reproductive health education.
MATERIAL AND METHOD
This study was undertaken from august 2010 to October 2010 in Thiruvananthapuram district of Kerala State, India. List of secondary schools of urban and rural were...