Sreekumar Balakrishna Pillai1* K. R. Murugan2 and Prabhu Balakrishna3
The period of adolescence is peculiar with the loss of identity as a child and the non-acceptance as an adult in social parlance. Thus, those at the cross road of life may be lured to the dark side of life by peer pressure and lack of parental support. The ICDS programme component include the adolescent girl care, covering health and developmental support. The Health Education (HE) sessions conducted at the anganwadi is thus a ray of hope to the adolescent girls in leading a healthy life in all its perspectives. The present study conducted among the Adolescent Girls (AGs) of the four southern districts of Kerala is an effort to bring out the facts about the health education sessions on reproductive health aspects of adolescent health through anganwadies and how the adolescent girls look at it.
Materials and methods: Using a structured interview schedule, data collected from 648 adolescent girls of 16 anganwadies selected from 8 ICDS projects of four southern districts namely Thiruvananthapuram, Kollam, Pathanamthitta and Alappuzha. Two projects each from the four districts were randomly selected at the first stage. Thus, two Anganwadies (AWs) each from these 8 projects were randomly selected. The data collected from 16 AWs were entered in Microsoft Excel and analysed using SPSS ver. 2016.
Results: Nearly 80% of the respondents know their anganwadi worker by name and she is the most accepted source of information. Age at menarche is coming down. The study revealed that 58.97% of the sexually experienced adolescent girls had not regularly attended health education sessions. Knowledge on health issues related to premarital sexual relations is fairly good among AGs. Urinary Tract Infection (UTI) is a common health problem among adolescent girls. Space constrains at the AWs and lack of proper information about the sessions are the important reasons for poor participation of AGs in HE sessions. Nearly 50% of the AGs suggest privacy in the sessions and changes in instructional pattern. It was found that nearly 50% of the sexually exposed AGs are not aware of the health issues associated with premarital sexual relations, suggesting that those AGs were lured or coaxed into sexual relation by the predators. This suggests that an all-round effort to boost the health education sessions to AGs through AWs by improving quality, content and instructional methodology is the need of the hour.
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