Parental knowledge and communication with their adolescent on sexual and reproductive health issues in Nepal.

Autor: Singh DR; Department of Public Health, Central Institute of Science and Technology (CIST) College, Pokhara University, Kathmandu, Nepal.; Department of Public Health, Asian College for Advance Studies, Purbanchal University, Satdobato, Lalitpur, Nepal.; School of Human and Health Sciences, University of Huddersfield, Huddersfield, United Kingdom., Shrestha S; Department of Public Health, Asian College for Advance Studies, Purbanchal University, Satdobato, Lalitpur, Nepal.; School of Health and Life Sciences, Teesside University, Middlesbrough, United Kingdom., Karki K; Department of Public Health, Asian College for Advance Studies, Purbanchal University, Satdobato, Lalitpur, Nepal., Sunuwar DR; Department of Nutritional Sciences, School of Public Health, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, United States of America., Khadka DB; Research and Innovation Section, Southeast Asia Development Action Network, Lalitpur, Nepal., Maharjan D; Department of Public Health, Asian College for Advance Studies, Purbanchal University, Satdobato, Lalitpur, Nepal.; Ecole des hautes études en santé publique (EHESP School of Public Health), Rennes Cedex, France., Sah LK; School of Nursing and Healthcare Leadership, University of Bradford, Bradford, United Kindom., Simkhada B; School of Human and Health Sciences, University of Huddersfield, Huddersfield, United Kingdom., Sah RK; School of Human and Health Sciences, University of Huddersfield, Huddersfield, United Kingdom.
Jazyk: angličtina
Zdroj: PloS one [PLoS One] 2023 Jul 25; Vol. 18 (7), pp. e0289116. Date of Electronic Publication: 2023 Jul 25 (Print Publication: 2023).
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0289116
Abstrakt: Background: Parental knowledge about sexual and reproductive health issues and adequate communication with their adolescent on these issues are crucial in promoting adolescent sexual and reproductive health. Although there are evidence on adolescent perceptions of their sexual health issues, research on parental perspectives of adolescent sexual health and parent-adolescent communication about sexual health issues in Nepal remains unexplored. Therefore, this study aimed to assess parental knowledge and communication practice about sexual and reproductive health with their adolescent children in Lalitpur Metropolitan City of Nepal.
Methods: A community-based cross-sectional study was conducted between January and March 2019 among randomly selected 308 parents of adolescents (aged 10-19 years) residing in Lalitpur Metropolitan City of Nepal. Face-to-face interviews using structured questionnaires were conducted to collect the data. The collected data were entered into EpiData software v3.1, and data analysis was performed using IBM SPSS Statistics for Windows Version 21.0 (IBM Corp. Armonk, NY, USA). The statistical significance was considered at a p-value <0.05 and a 95% confidence interval (CI).
Results: Of 308 parents, one-third of parents were found to have correct knowledge about safe abortion, menstrual hygiene and management, modern contraceptives, prevention of sexually transmitted infections, wet dreams among male adolescents, abstaining from sexual intercourse during the fertile period, and the possibility of a male adolescent to impregnate a girl. In addition, only 40.9% of parents were found to have communicated with their adolescent children about sexual and reproductive health issues. Parents who have knowledge about puberty (aOR = 2.2, 95% CI: 1.2-3.9), belong to Bharamin/Chhetri ethnic group (aOR = 1.2, 95% CI: 1.1-2.2), self-employed (aOR: 2.4, 95% CI: 1.3-4.0), having two or more adolescent children (aOR = 2.0, 95% CI: 1.1-3.6), and whose adolescent children were staying in school hostel (aOR = 1.7, 95% CI:1.0-3.0) were more likely to have parental communication about sexual and reproductive health with their adolescent children.
Conclusions: Most parents do not communicate with their adolescent children on sexual health topics, although they feel sexual health education is essential to adolescents. The majority of parents were found inadequately aware of adolescent sexual health issues. It is crucial to have contextual interventions that would encourage parent-adolescent communication on sexual health matters in an integrated way to promote adolescent sexual and reproductive health.
Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.
(Copyright: © 2023 Singh et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.)
Databáze: MEDLINE
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