Main social aspects of affects the formation of adequate knowledge about reproductive health in adolescence girls

Abstract

Reproductive health is a reflection of health during childhood, and crucial during adolescence and adulthood, sets the stage for health beyond the reproductive years for women and affects the health of the next generation.

Many different types of educational programs, based on local peculiarities have been shown to positively affect reproductive health outcomes. Thus we decided to analyze the “Questionnaire adolescents 15–18 years” of 532 girls from the database of Ukrainian longitudinal study “Family and Children of Ukraine” using parameters that characterize main social factors of influence on formation of life style habits at adolescent girls.

Among the surveyed adolescent girls fairly high amount does not demonstrate a high level of awareness in the issues of reproductive health, sexual development and sexual relationships. Evident link between the level of communication with adolescents and parents and level of knowledge on reproductive health issues at this group of girls was found – the girls that point on the family communication deficits had given less informative answer on questions concerning the development of the reproductive and sexual relations, and more often choose as information source on this topic unreliable and badly controlled sources – friends, the media and the Internet. However, among adolescents who are satisfied with the level of communication with their parents (vast majority – 97%), the percentage of badly informed is also noticeable.

Parameters that are considered as risk factors for social anamnesis – property status, education level of parents, family housing – don’t have a real impact on the deficit in family communication and adolescent’s awareness.

However, it is worth noting that 56% of girls didn't receive information about reproductive and sexual development from specialists – health workers, psychologists and teachers, but their level of knowledge doesn’t significantly differs from those who got such information from experts.

We can conclude that existing educational programs are not sufficiently effective, and the means provided for existing programs do not provide adequate coverage of adolescents.