Parents' attitude and practice towards sexual and reproductive health education to adolescents in Korogwe district, Tanga.

Abstract

The aim of the study was to fmd out parents attitude and practices to sexual and reproductive health education towards their adolescents. The prevalence of sexual activity is very high among the adolescents with first sexual intercourse begirming in early period of life. Such behaviors make the adolescents more vulnerable to sexually transmitted infections, including the deadly disease lllVI AIDS, unintended pregnancies leading to poor social economic status, illiteracy and unemployment. Lack of knowledge and in some instance poor knowledge appears to be major problem among sexually active adolescents. This situation is correlated to reproductive health risk adolescents are exposed to. Sexual and reproductive health education is identified as one of the best method of prevention of sexuality problems. Literature review shows the necessity of including parents in education offered to adolescents. Curriculum design should be participatory with input from the community and its young people. Two hundred and fifty parents taking care of children aged between 10 to 19 years old were interviewed in the study. The researcher's findings revealed that parents actually favour programmes, which give .sex education to their children though there was relationship between acceptance of sexual and reproductive health and parent's age, religion, and level of education. The fmdings also revealed that parents are the most preferred source of sexual and reproductive health education to adolescents, whereas there are different ages where sexual and reproductive health education can be introduced between male and female adolescents.