Assessment of health facility compliance with standards and perception of adolescents to quality of sexual and reproductive health services in Kilindi, Tanga Tanzania

Abstract

Background Promoting healthy practices during adolescence and taking steps for better protection of young people from health risks is critical to the future of countries’ health. Young people aged 15-24years account for 60% of the new HIV infection in sub Sahara Africa. The risk of dying from pregnancy-related causes is much higher for adolescents than for older women. Quality of Sexual and Reproductive Health (SRH) services is poor in most areas in rural settings leading to low utilization of services. The study aim at assessing health facility compliance with standards and perception of adolescents to quality of sexual and reproductive health services in Kilindi, Tanga Tanzania. Objectives Main Objective of this study was to assess health facilities compliance with standards and perception of adolescents to quality of sexual and reproductive health services in Kilindi, Tanga Tanzania with Specific objectives of determining quality of SRH service in relation to MoHSW standard guidelines in Kilindi District, to assess adolescents perception towards quality of SRH services offered in Health facilities in Kilindi District and to assess attitudes of health workers towards adolescents SRH services in Kilindi District Materials and Methods A multi-stage sampling strategy was employed to select the study sample in this cross sectional community and facility based study. Three hundred (300) young people were interviewed while 14-health facilities were assessed. Data were generated using structured interviews and standard serviqual questionnaire and analyzed using stata version 12 statistical packages. Serviqual questionnaires were analyzed using standard serviqual analysis stages where the five quality dimensions of tangibility of service, assurance, empathy, responsiveness and reliability gape scores were assessed. Results Quality of SRH services was perceived low with average gap score of 4.57 among all five-quality dimensions. Health facilities also showed very low scores of 2.57 out of 4 in terms of functioning fully following the seven standards for provision of Youth friendly services. Knowledge of SRH was high among young people who had higher education (p <0.001). Young people with advanced age also had higher knowledge of STIs. Health care providers had no enough training on youth friendly SRH services.