REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH LITERACY STATUS AND ASSOCIATED FACTORS AMONG ADOLESCENTS IN THREE HIGH SCHOOLS OF BOKE DISTRICT, WEST HARERGHE, EASTERN ETHIOPIA

Abstract

Health literacy refers to personal competencies for the access to, understanding of, appraisal of and application of health information in order to make sound decisions in everyday life. Adolescents are at crucial stage of development characterized by many physical, emotional and cognitive changes. These changes make adolescence an appropriate time to begin thinking about health literacy interventions, and improving health literacy at an early age has a direct impact on health literacy later in life as adolescents are acquiring knowledge and setting behavior patterns they will carry with them as they transition into adulthood. Objective: To assess reproductive health literacy status and associated factors among adolescents in three high schools of Boke district, West Harerghe, Eastern Ethiopia January 1-5, 2021. Methods: Institutional based cross-sectional study design was conducted on 403 adolescents of age of 15 – 19 years in three high schools of Boke district from January 1-5, 2021. From the three high schools sampling with probability proportional to their size was used, and then systematic random sampling was used to recruit study participants. Data were entered in to EpiData-3.0.2 and analyzed by SPSS-20. Descriptive analysis was computed. Bivariate logistic regression was computed to assess statistical association between the outcome variable and Variables shown association with the outcome variable were included in multiple logistic regressions. Significant of statistical association were determined at P-value (-<0.05-). Result: Adequate reproductive health literacy status was 72(18.4%). Female sex was about 52% times (AOR = 0.48, 95% CI: 0.257, 0.881) less likely to have adequate reproductive health literacy status. School adolescents never attending reproductive health topic in class were about 56% times (AOR = 0.44, 95% CI: 0.233, 0.843) less likely to have adequate reproductive health literacy status. School adolescents never used of reproductive health service ever was also about 60% times (AOR = 0.40, 95% CI: 0.231, 0.704) less likely to have adequate reproductive health literacy status. Conclusion: The finding from this study showed large proportion of school adolescents has limited reproductive health literacy status. Thus, school adolescents are at higher risk of reproductive health problems. So efforts should be made to increase Adolescent reproductive health service coverage with due attention on female school adolescents