Volume 10, Issue 2, February 2015, Pages 716–725
Seth Christopher Yaw Appiah1, Eric Badu2, Jonathan Mensah Dapaah3, Harriet Takyi4, and Mohammed Abubakari5
1 Department of Sociology and Social Work, Faculty of Art and Social Sciences, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Kumasi, Ghana
2 MSc Disability, Rehabilitation and Development, Department of Community Health, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Kumasi, Ghana
3 Lecturer, Department of Sociology and Social Work, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Ghana
4 Lecturer, Department of Sociology and Social Work, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Ghana
5 Department of Planning, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Ghana
Original language: English
Copyright © 2015 ISSR Journals. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Background: Incidence and prevalence of reproductive health difficulties have been shown to be higher among younger people. In Ghana, youthfriendly sexual and reproductive health services and facilities are very limited. The study aimed at examining the friendliness of sexual and reproductive health service delivery and utilization.
Methods: Across sectional design with both qualitative and quantitative methods was conducted to examine the friendliness and utilization of reproductive health services among youth in the Kwadaso Sub-Metro of Ashanti Region, Ghana. A multi-stage stratified sampling was used to enroll 170 youth (150 in-school and 20 out of school youth) aged 10 - 24years. Data analysis involved descriptive statistics using SPSS software version 20.
Results: Findings demonstrated that out of the 150 in-school youth sampled, 56% ever had a boyfriend or girlfriend, however, about one third(39.3%) did not recall the length of stay with partner, 58% have heard about sexual reproductive health services offered in the study area. A total of 55.8% of all categories of youth had used at least one or more reproductive health service before. Findings again revealed that 37.2% and 44% respectively of youth who had used sexual reproductive health considered the services received at a facility to be very friendly and friendly, yet, a few 18.6% indicated unfriendliness with services received at the facility.
Conclusion: An integrative and comprehensive approach is required to scale up youth utilization of sexual reproductive health services especially facility based. This requires baseline survey of youth users of reproductive health services and the quality of services offered.
Author Keywords: Youth friendliness, sexual and reproductive health, service delivery, service utilization, Ghana.
Seth Christopher Yaw Appiah1, Eric Badu2, Jonathan Mensah Dapaah3, Harriet Takyi4, and Mohammed Abubakari5
1 Department of Sociology and Social Work, Faculty of Art and Social Sciences, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Kumasi, Ghana
2 MSc Disability, Rehabilitation and Development, Department of Community Health, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Kumasi, Ghana
3 Lecturer, Department of Sociology and Social Work, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Ghana
4 Lecturer, Department of Sociology and Social Work, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Ghana
5 Department of Planning, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Ghana
Original language: English
Copyright © 2015 ISSR Journals. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Abstract
Background: Incidence and prevalence of reproductive health difficulties have been shown to be higher among younger people. In Ghana, youthfriendly sexual and reproductive health services and facilities are very limited. The study aimed at examining the friendliness of sexual and reproductive health service delivery and utilization.
Methods: Across sectional design with both qualitative and quantitative methods was conducted to examine the friendliness and utilization of reproductive health services among youth in the Kwadaso Sub-Metro of Ashanti Region, Ghana. A multi-stage stratified sampling was used to enroll 170 youth (150 in-school and 20 out of school youth) aged 10 - 24years. Data analysis involved descriptive statistics using SPSS software version 20.
Results: Findings demonstrated that out of the 150 in-school youth sampled, 56% ever had a boyfriend or girlfriend, however, about one third(39.3%) did not recall the length of stay with partner, 58% have heard about sexual reproductive health services offered in the study area. A total of 55.8% of all categories of youth had used at least one or more reproductive health service before. Findings again revealed that 37.2% and 44% respectively of youth who had used sexual reproductive health considered the services received at a facility to be very friendly and friendly, yet, a few 18.6% indicated unfriendliness with services received at the facility.
Conclusion: An integrative and comprehensive approach is required to scale up youth utilization of sexual reproductive health services especially facility based. This requires baseline survey of youth users of reproductive health services and the quality of services offered.
Author Keywords: Youth friendliness, sexual and reproductive health, service delivery, service utilization, Ghana.
How to Cite this Article
Seth Christopher Yaw Appiah, Eric Badu, Jonathan Mensah Dapaah, Harriet Takyi, and Mohammed Abubakari, “Youth friendliness of sexual and reproductive health service delivery and service utilization in the Kwadaso Sub-Metro of the Ashanti Region, Ghana,” International Journal of Innovation and Applied Studies, vol. 10, no. 2, pp. 716–725, February 2015.
