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Randomized Controlled Trial
. 2015 Apr 30;10(4):e0125267.
doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0125267. eCollection 2015.

Effects of an adolescent sexual and reproductive health intervention on health service usage by young people in northern Ghana: a community-randomised trial

Gifty Apiung Aninanya  1 , Cornelius Y Debpuur  2 , Timothy Awine  2 , John E Williams  2 , Abraham Hodgson  3 , Natasha Howard  4
Affiliations
Randomized Controlled Trial

Effects of an adolescent sexual and reproductive health intervention on health service usage by young people in northern Ghana: a community-randomised trial

Gifty Apiung Aninanya et al. PLoS One. .

Abstract

Background: While many Ghanaian adolescents encounter sexual and reproductive health problems, their usage of services remains low. A social learning intervention, incorporating environment, motivation, education, and self-efficacy to change behaviour, was implemented in a low-income district of northern Ghana to increase adolescent services usage. This study aimed to assess the impact of this intervention on usage of sexual and reproductive health services by young people.

Methods: Twenty-six communities were randomly allocated to (i) an intervention consisting of school-based curriculum, out-of-school outreach, community mobilisation, and health-worker training in youth-friendly health services, or (ii) comparison consisting of community mobilisation and youth-friendly health services training only. Outcome measures were usage of sexually-transmitted infections (STIs) management, HIV counselling and testing, antenatal care or perinatal services in the past year and reported service satisfaction. Data was collected, at baseline and three years after, from a cohort of 2,664 adolescents aged 15-17 at baseline.

Results: Exposure was associated with over twice the odds of using STI services (AOR 2.47; 95%CI 1.78-3.42), 89% greater odds of using perinatal services (AOR 1.89; 95%CI 1.37-2.60) and 56% greater odds of using antenatal services (AOR 1.56; 95%CI 1.10-2.20) among participants in intervention versus comparison communities, after adjustment for baseline differences.

Conclusions: The addition of targeted school-based and outreach activities increased service usage by young people more than community mobilisation and training providers in youth-friendly services provision alone.

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Conflict of interest statement

Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Figures

Fig 1
Fig 1. Map of Ghana indicating study area.
Source: http://openi.nlm.nih.gov/imgs/rescaled512/2935923_GHA-3-5233-g001.png (14/03/2015)
Fig 2
Fig 2. Trial profile.
Fig 3
Fig 3. Percentage change in service usage.
Percentage differences between baseline and endline in intervention and comparison sites.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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