Level of Young People Sexual and Reproductive Health Service Utilization and Its Associated Factors among Young People in Awabel District, Northwest Ethiopia

Abstract

Background: Currently in Ethiopia, young people's sexual and reproductive health services are limited and there is a growing issue of confidentiality and affordability of these health services. Moreover, the available services provided are not sensitive to the special needs of young people. Therefore, this study was aimed to assess young people's sexual and reproductive health service utilization and its associated factors in Awabel district, Northwest Ethiopia.

Methods: A community based cross-sectional study was conducted among 781 randomly selected young people using a pre-tested structured questionnaires in Awabel district, Northwest Ethiopia. Data were entered into Epi data version 3.1 and analyzed using SPSS version 16.0 software.

Results: The mean age of respondents were 17.80 (+ 2.65) years. About 41% of young people had utilized sexual and reproductive health services. Young people from families of higher family expenditure, lived with mothers, participated in peer education and lived near to a Health Center were more likely to utilize sexual and reproductive health services. Furthermore, those who had a parental discussion on sexual and reproductive health (AOR (95% C.I): 2.23 (1.43, 3.46)) and ever had sexual intercourse (AOR (95% C.I): 1.88 (1.30, 2.71)) were more likely to utilize the service than their counterparts. On the other hand, those young people lived with their father and had a primary level of educational attainment was less likely to utilize the service.

Conclusion: Utilization of sexual and reproductive health services is low which needs a great attention where; if not intervened, young people might engage in risky sexual activities. Therefore, it needs a concerted effort from all the concerned bodies to improve their service utilization and thereby reduce the burden of young people's disease and disabilities associated with sexual and reproductive health.

Fig 1. Situations how first sexual intercourse was started among young people in Northwest Ethiopia, 2015 (n = 474).

Fig 2. Reasons of young people for not utilizing SRH services in Northwest Ethiopia, 2015 (n = 439).