KNOWLEDGE, ATTITUDES AND PRACTICES OF CONTRACEPTIVES AMONG SENIOR SECONDARY SCHOOL GIRLS IN IBADAN NORTH LOCAL GOVERNMENT AREA

Abstract

There is an increasing rate of unprotected sexual intercourse among adolescents due to peer pressure and media exposure. Anecdotal reports showed that due to lack of adequate knowledge about sexual and reproductive health issues, secondary school girls do not consider themselves to be at risk of unintended pregnancy and therefore do not use contraceptives. This study therefore assessed knowledge, attitudes and practice of contraception among senior secondary school girls in Ibadan North local government area (LGA), Nigeria.

The study was a descriptive cross-sectional survey. A three –stage random sampling technique was used to select 402 final year senior secondary school girls from 22 out of the 48 schools in the LGA for interview. A validated semi-structured questionnaire was used for data collection. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, chi-square and ANOVA.

The mean age of the students was 16.8±2.0 years. The respondents were predominantly (75.0%) Yoruba and they consist of 63.1% Christians and 33.6% muslims .Sixty-two precent have heard about contraceptives from various sources. These includes television (39.6%), friends (26.9%),radio(25.6%),newspapers and magazines(18.0%) all in a multiple response. The overall mean knowledge score of the respondents was 10.3± 4.1 out of a maximum of 20. Age positively influenced knowledge of contraception as respondents aged 20 years and above had the highest mean score of 12.1±4.1 followed by age 17-19 years (10.3±3.9) and age 14-16 years (10.4±4.2) (p<0.05). Forty- two percent agreed that contraceptives use is a good practice and 31.6% were of the belief that contraceptives are really effective. Only 22.0% had ever had sexual intercourse and 20.0% of these used contraceptives while only 7.0% used contraceptives during their last sexual activity. Commonly used contraceptives by respondents were male condoms (59.3%) and intra-uterine contraceptive device (14.8%). Sixty-two percent of those that are less than 20 years old compared with 81.8% of 20 years old and above used contraceptive in their last sexual act. Reasoned adduced for non-use of contraceptives were perceived danger to health (62.4%), fear of being tagged a prostitute (43.8%), perceived non- usefulness (42.8%), inability to have easy access to contraceptives (41.0%), ability to calculate safe period (29.4%) and cost (29.4%).

Knowledge of contraceptives among the study population was moderate but utilization remains low. There is the need for reproductive health programmes for the students using peer education and public enlightenment aimed at improving attitude,access and utilization of contraceptives.