Communications between Parents and Sexually Active Youth: In the Case of Gulele Subcity in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
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Date
2014-06
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Addis Ababa University
Abstract
Sexual and reproductive health problems of adolescents in Ethiopia are rising from time to time. This
may be associated with different reasons. Different researches done in different countries had shown that
good fami ly communication regarding sexual risk behavior has been positively associated with open
discussion between parents and adolescents. There are different factors affecting communications
between parents and adolescents regarding SRH issues which are uncovered. In particular parents failed
to communicate with their adolescent children on sensitive issues of sexuality. Thus Communication
between them about reproductive health issues was found difficu lt and minimal.
The study was done in an attempt to identify those factors and the influence of parent-adolescent
communication on SRH issues. More over the study was done to investigate the association between
socia-cultural and economic determinants and the communications between parents and adolescents on
SRH.
In the study both qualitative and quantitative methodologies were employed .A cross-sectional
descriptive study involved in 382 purposively selected Students. A pre- tested structured anonymous
questionnaire was used to collect quantitative data, which was entered, cleaned and analyzed us ing SPSS
version 19.0 statistical package. The study also employed bivariate correlation to evaluate the degree of
relationship between the two variables. Qualitative information was obtained from six homogenous
focus group discussions of student participants (each three groups from male and female participants),
depth interviews of sixteen parents and five key informants ' interviewees. A total of sixteen interviews
were done with parents of both sexes and the data analysis was done thematically to answer the basic
research questions.
The majority of the respondents (74.3%) reported that they never discussed on SRH issues with their
parents. But ninety of the respondents (25.7%) said that they discussed with their parents .The
respondents who preferred their mother to discuss on SRH issues were (56.2%).Two hundred
sixteen of the respondents (63.3 %) reported that they did not discuss with neither of their parents in the
topics of SRH. Ninety seven of the respondents (28.4%) reported that they discussed with their parents
rarely. Traditional norms, Cultures, sensitiveness of the issue and lack of communications skill, these
were alleged to prohibit parents from discussing some issues of reproductive health, especially issues of
sexuality with their children.
The overall research finding shows that there is low communication between parent and adolescent
on different SRH issues with different reasons for not discussing. Hence, based on the findings obtained
in this study it is recommended that comprehensive family life education should be initiated for the
students and parents in school, home, religious institution, and health facilit ies (ONE to FIVE Urban
Health Extension Workers Approach) for effective communication to occur on SRH. In addition
programs working in Adolescent Sexual and Reproductive Health (ASRH) should include parents to
address parental influences on adolescents' reproductive health and work to alleviate those factors which
affect communication between parent and adolescents. There is also needed to develop appropriate
interventions for empowering parents to communicate with their adolescent (children) about the full
range of sexual and reproductive health issues.
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Keywords
Communications between Parents