Parent-Adolescent Communication about Sexual and Reproductive Health and Its Association with Gender and Pre-Marital Sex Among Secondary and Preparatory School Students in Woldia Town, North East Ethiopia, 2019

Abstract Background : Adolescent today faced different health threats which are predominantly behavioral. Parent-adolescent communication about sexual matters is one of the means that encourages adolescents to adopt responsible sexual behavior. Many children in Africa is uncomfortable to have a Communication about sexual and reproductive health issues with their parents because the subject is a taboo topic in most homes. So, this study aimed to assess magnitude of communication between adolescents and parents on SRH issues and its association with gender and premarital sexual practice among school adolescents of Woldia Town. Methods : School based cross-sectional study was conducted on 368 unmarried Secondary and preparatory school adolescents (15-19 years) in Woldia Town. Simple random sampling were employed to select study participants. Self-administered questionnaire were used. Data were entered by EPI-Data version 3.0.2 and analyzed by using SPSS version 20. Result : In this study 56.3% of school adolescents had parental communication on sexual and reproductive health issues. The result of this study showed that there was a significant negative association between pre-marital sexual practice and adolescent-parent communication on SRH issues where by adolescents who had history of sexual intercourse where 64% less likely to communicate with parents (AOR: 0.36 95% CI: 0.20, 0.65). Conclusion and recommendation : This study showed that adolescent-parent communication about sexual and reproductive health issues was low in Woldia Town. Therefore, programs focusing on meeting young people sexual and reproductive health needs in the area should focus on changing the social and cultural views of communicating sexual issues in addition to working on changing individual behaviors on contraceptive use.