Abstract:

The study investigated the parent-adolescent communication on sexual issues as predictors of sexual-risk reduction among in-school adolescents in secondary school. Teenage pregnancy and adolescent birth rates are high at 300/1000 and 158/1000 live births respectively in 2018. Frequent discussion on sexual behaviour is more likely to reduce adolescent risk-taking sexual behaviors. However, there is a paucity of evidence about adolescent parent communication in Yei River State. A cross-sectional study using both quantitative and qualitative approaches involving 156 participants to explore the parent-adolescent communication frequency and topics discussed among secondary school adolescents was carried out. Respondents were recruited from the ten functional secondary schools in Yei River state from secondary school class 1 to 4. The inclusion criteria consider secondary school adolescent aged 15 to 19, parental consent and adolescent acceptance to participate in the study. Adolescent below the age 15 and young men above 19 years of age were excluded from the study. Data was collected using semi-structured questionnaire, the date collected were coded first and analyzed suing SPSS version 21. The percentage of adolescents who had more than three sessions of communication with their parents about sexual behaviour was nearly 43% in which, majority 67% reported to have frequent discussions with their mothers and the commonly discussed topics were biological and physical development. The study concluded that a few adolescents have frequent communication with their parents on sexual behaviours. This study recommends, repeat of the current study in some states for comparison, as well as a study focusing on both out of school and school adolescent to explore more.

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