Author(s)

Meskerem Abebe, Worku Awoke

College of Medicine and Health Sciences, Bahir Dar University, Bahir Dar, Ethiopia.
GAMBY Colleges of Medicine and Health Sciences, Bahir Dar, Ethiopia.

Introduction: Young people in Ethiopia face greater reproductive health risks than adults. Despite efforts that were made on youth to utilize reproductive health service, studies show that there is little information about the extent to which youth utilize available health services. For the proper planning of appropriate health services for youth, it is crucial to have knowledge on the pattern of their use and its associated factors. So this study was conducted from June to September 2013 to assess utilization of youth reproductive health and its associated factors among high school students in Bahir Dar town, Amhara region, Ethiopia, 2013. Methods: Institutional based cross-sectional study was conducted among High school student from June to September 2013. Multistage sampling technique was used to select the total of 818 study participants. Data were collected by means of a pretested standardized questionnaire; analysis was carried out using SPSS version 16. Crude and adjusted odds ratio with 95% confidence interval was calculated using binary logistic regression; p-value less than 0.05 was considered as statistically significant. Results: The study indicated that among 818 students, 480(58.7%) were females. The data indicates that, 32% of youth utilized youth reproductive health service. Barriers in utilizing reproductive health services, for 31% of the students were due to inconvenience hours and 28.5% were due to fear of being seen by parents or people whom they know. Among socio-demographic predictors, age and reproductive health problems showed a significant association with utilization of youth reproductive health services. Students with age 20-24 were 2.31 times more likely to utilize reproductive health service than age15-19 (AOR = 2.31, CI 95% (1.01, 5.28)). Similarly, students who had reproductive health problems were 1.54 times more likely to utilize reproductive health services than students who had no reproductive illness. Conclusions: The majority of youth were not utilizing reproductive health services. Age and reproductive health problems showed a significant association with utilization of youth reproductive health services.

Youth Reproductive Health, Utilization, Ethiopia

Abebe, M. and Awoke, W. (2014) Utilization of Youth Reproductive Health Services and Associated Factors among High School Students in Bahir Dar, Amhara Regional State, Ethiopia. Open Journal of Epidemiology, 4, 69-75. doi: 10.4236/ojepi.2014.42012.