Parent-adolescent communication on sexual and reproductive health among school adolescents of Woldia town, Ethiopia by the year 2019

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to assess the magnitude of parent-adolescent communication on sexual
and reproductive health (SRH) issues and its association with gender and premarital sexual practice among
school adolescents of Woldia town.
Design/methodology/approach – School-based cross-sectional study was conducted on 368 unmarried
secondary and preparatory school adolescents (15–19 years) in Woldia town. Simple random sampling was
employed to select study participants. Self-administered questionnaire was used. Data were entered by EPIData
version 3.0.2 and analyzed by using SPSS version 20.
Findings – In this study, 56.3% of school adolescents had parental communication on sexual and reproductive
health issues. The result of this study showed that adolescents who had history of sexual intercourse where
64% less likely to communicate with parents on sexual and reproductive health issues (AOR: 0.36 95% CI: 0.20,
0.65), but there was no association between gender and sexual and reproductive health communication between
adolescent and parent (AOR: 1.06, 95% CI: 0.64, 1.75).
Originality/value – Parent-adolescent communication about sexual matters is one of the means that
encourages adolescents to adopt responsible sexual behavior. Many children in Africa are uncomfortable to
have a communication about sexual and reproductive health issues with their parents because the subject is a
taboo topic in most homes.