Abstract

Natinael Bogale and Gebi Agero*

ABSTRACT

Background: Globally young people are faced with immense reproductive health problems; they have limited access to quality reproductive health. In Ethiopia, about 63% of the total population is below the age of 25 years. Nationwide 13% of teenagers have started childbearing, unwanted sex or marriage, putting them at risk of unwanted pregnancies, unsafe abortions and sexually transmitted infections. Objectives: The objective of this study was to assess utilization of youth-friendly reproductive health service among high school students in Bosset Woreda, Ethiopia, May 2018. Methods and Materials: Institutional based cross-sectional study was used and a total of 360 study participants were selected from three randomly selected high schools. Simple random sampling technique was used to select study participants. Dgaruata was entered into EPI-INFO Version -7 and analyzed using SPSS version 20. Odds ratios, along with 95% confidence interval was calculated using bivariable and multivariable logistic regression; p-value less than 0.05 was considered as statistically significant. Results: This study indicates that, 187(51.9%) were female and 34.4% of youth's utilized youth reproductive health service. More than half 224(62.2%) of the respondents were knowledgeable about reproductive health service. Females were 1.76 times more likely to use reproductive health services than male respondents (AOR = 1.76, (95% CI 1.12-2.78)). Youth who are near to health facility in less than 30-minute travel or those who pay two birr for transport cost were 2.6 times more likely to utilize reproductive health service than those who take more than 30-minute walking distance (AOR=2.6 (95% CI 1.2-5.99). Conclusion: The level of youth-friendly reproductive health service utilization was very low; there need to be great effort and attention of all concerned bodies to design and implement appropriate youth reproductive health strategies in schools to influence the knowledge, attitudes and practice of youths to increase the service utilization.