Sexual health status of adolescent girls in rural Orissa.
Int Conf AIDS 2004 Jul 11-16; 15:(abstract no. C10016)
Basudev Panda M Orissa Voluntary Health Association, Bhubaneswar, India
Objectives: To assess the sexual and socio-economic factors affecting sexual health. Methodology: Multistage stratified random sampling Findings: The prevalence of STDs/RTIs are quite high in Orissa. The educational was very poor as 65% constitutes either drop out or illiterate. 4% adolescents got married below 18 years of age. 13.3% constitutes as child labourers. The mean and median age at menarche was 12.97 and 13 years respectively. 40.5% respondents experience pain during menstruation 46.6% adopt sanitary measures during menstruation. Very few had knowledge of small family and birth spacing. In most cases (56.5%) mother/mother in law takes decision regarding sexual health of adolescent girls in the family Visited health cemtres once in last one year for sexual health purpose. Cognitive, emotional and social development during adolescent also creates some problems with them. Adolescents face a lot of sex-problems during this period. There is lack of gender sensitive behaviour, which restricts access to reproductive health services particularly by adolescent girls. There is bare need of sexual and reproductive health education to help improve the sexual health status of the adolescent girls.
CONCLUSION: There is immediate needs to address the issue in a more comprehensive manner at all level of society through behavioural change communication, promotion of contraceptives, targetted interventions and awarenessa nd advocacy etc.
Keywords: AEGIS, Health Status, Rural Population, Coitus, Data Collection, Reproductive Medicine, Demography, Health Education, Behavior, Adolescent, Humans, Adolescence, Child, Female, education
