Youth Friendly Sexual and Reproductive Health Services Utilization and Associated Factors, Bale Zone, Ethiopia: Community Based Cross-Sectional Study

Background:  There is growing evidence from around the world that even if young people want to act in ways that promote their health, they often have formidable barriers to overcome before they can turn their intentions in to action. However, there has been limited up to date research evidence on this aspect to take appropriate interventions.

Objective:To assess youth friendly sexual and reproductive health services utilizations and associated factors among youth of Bale zone Ethiopia.

Methods: A community based cross sectional study design was conducted in March, 2015. Four towns which have health centers providing youth friendly services were included in the study. Systematic random sampling technique was used to select individual participants at house hold level. Structured and pretested questionnaire was used for data collection. The Data were cleaned, coded and analysed using IBM statistics SPSS version 21.0. Descriptive statistics, bivariate and multivariate logistic regression were conducted to identify associated factors. Statistical significance was declared at p-value of < 0.05.

Results:  Out of 390 participants, 382 of participants responded to questionnaire making the response rate of 97.9%. From the total respondents, 213 (55.8%) were females and the mean age was 18.97 years with the standard deviation of 1.97 years. The prevalence of youth friendly service utilization in this study is 172 (46.9%). From various independent variables analysed age category, attitude, ever had sex, age at first sex and ever acquiring STDs were found to be significant predictors of YFSRHS.

Conclusion: This study revealed only less than half of youth were using youth friendly services at the time of this study. Ever have had sexual intercourse, age at first sexual intercourse, and attitude towards youth friendly services were independent predictors of utilization. Thus, interventions focused on increasing youth friendly sexual and reproductive health services utilization is recommended.

Author(s): Kerbo AA

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