TITLE:
Does Facility Based Sexual and Reproductive Health Services Meet the Needs of Young Persons? Views from Cross Section of Ghanaian Youth
AUTHORS:
Jonathan Mensah Dapaah, Seth Christopher Yaw Appiah, Eric Badu, Bernard Obeng, Victoria Ampiah
KEYWORDS:
Facility-Based, Sexual and Reproductive Health, Young Persons, Youth, Needs, Ghana
JOURNAL NAME:
Advances in Sexual Medicine,
Vol.5 No.3,
July
29,
2015
ABSTRACT: The focus on facility based health setting to provide sexual and reproductive health to the youth has been tested in several settings and achieved varying results. This study examined whether facility based sexual and reproductive health services met the needs of Ghanaian youth. Adopting the descriptive cross sectional design, 170 youths between the ages of 10 and 24 were sampled. A three-stage stratified random sampling technique was adopted. The results of the study are presented using descriptive statistics. The study established that a total of 55.8% (95/170) of the youth had utilized at least one or more of a sexual and reproductive health service in life time. However, only 45.2% (43/95) of youth used or accessed sexual and reproductive health services from a facility based setting. Facility based sexual and reproductive health service provided specifically for the youth is very limited. This calls for the provision of out-of health facility services located within the communities and at strategic places while ensuring confidentiality to the youth. More rigorous research is recommended on a national scale to examine youth preference for the type of facility based and out-of-facility based sexual and reproductive health services to meet the needs of young people.