Knowledge and Perceptions of Adolescent Girls on Reproductive Health (A Case Study of Kalika Higher Secondary School, Pokhara)

Abstract

This study is based on the primary data collected from field survey including 139 sampled adolescents girls students aged 15-19 years of higher secondary school. Among of them 119 girls were selected by systematic random sampling and 20 were selected for the purpose of focus group discussion.

Reproductive health is vital component of overall health, which is considered as a great subject of concern all over the world. Reproductive health is an area in which adolescents are particularly vulnerable. Due to the interplay of biological, socio cultural and traditional barrier to the information and inaccessibility of the services with regard to the sexual and reproductive health, they have to faced various vulnerable situation such as early pregnancy, unsafe abortion, risk of STDs including HIV/AIDS, adolescents maternal mortality etc. In this context, this study tries to analyse the knowledge and perception of adolescents on reproductive health.

From this study, it is observed the level of their knowledge and perception on reproductive health and its education is quite satisfactory. They also well informed in this issues such as STDs including HIV/AIDS routes of transmission and its preventing measures, unsafe abortion, maternity care and infertility. The study also deals with the variation among students in terms of age.