Masters Dissertations

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Browsing Masters Dissertations by Subject "Adolescents"

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    Assessing communication between adolescents and parents on sexual and reproductive health a case study of Ilala district –Dar es salaam region, Tanzania
    (University of Dar es Salaam, 2014) Dungumaro, Josephine William
    Various stakeholders have made efforts and urge parents and guardians to speak to their children about Sexual and Reproductive Health (SRH) issues so as to ensure that they make right decisions. In spite of the fact that SRH education can promote healthy sexual behaviours of the adolescents, the results of this intervention are still at a minimal even after several efforts made by different organizations such as AMREF, JICA Tanzania and the Tanzanian government. The general objective of the study was to assess communication between adolescents and parents on sexual and reproductive health. Specifically, the study aimed at exploring attitudes/perceptions of parents regarding communication on SRH matters, determining methods or mechanisms used by parents to address adolescents’ sexual and reproductive health, to find out frequency, timing and topics conversed between adolescents and parents on sexual and reproductive health, and to identify challenges parents and adolescents face while conversing about sexual reproductive health. The study was conducted in Ilala Municipality in Dar es Salaam region. A sample of 90 respondents was used in this study. Simple random and purposive sampling were applied in selecting the parents and students respectively. Data were collected using questionnaires, interviews, Focus Group Discussion (FGDs) and documentary review. Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) was employed in analysing quantitative data while thematic approach was adopted to analyse qualitative data. The study showed that there is very negative perception and attitudes of parents on SRH matters. They felt talking about sex with their children as shameful, immoral and encouraging the child to have sex. Parent-child communication about SRH happened in few families even though adolescents appreciated the idea of communication on SRH matters. The communication was mainly on same sex basis (mother-daughter and rarely father-son or father-daughter) and mostly took place in the form of warnings and threats. Communication was triggered by seeing or hearing something a parent perceived negative and would not like their child to experience (such as a death attributable to HIV and unmarried young person's pregnancy). Although most young people were relaxed with their mothers than fathers, there is lack of trust as to what they can tell their parents for fear of punishment. Parents were limited as to what they could communicate about SRH because of lack of appropriate knowledge and cultural norms that restricted interactions between opposite sex and that the subject itself is considered as a taboo to be discussed. It is concluded that due to the consequences of the HIV pandemic, parents are making attempts to communicate with their children about SRH. They are however, limited by cultural barriers, and lack of appropriate knowledge. With some skills training on communication and SRH, parents may be a natural avenue for channeling and reinforcing HIV/AIDS prevention messages to their children as well as controlling the ever increasing rate of pregnancies among school girls who end up dropping out of schools. It is recommended that the government should reconsider formulating a well strategic policy that will allow the teaching of SRH from primary schools as one of the subject on a more comprehensive approach and more participatory manner.
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    An assessment of parents’ perception and attitude towards educating adolescents about sexual and reproductive health: the case of Temeke Municipality
    (University of Dar es salaam, 2012) Hamisi, Zuwena
    The delivery of adolescent’s sexual and reproductive health (SRH) in Tanzania has been mainly organized in school, media and through different campaigns. It was very rare for most of these interventions to include parents of those adolescents because it has been assumed that many parents in African countries do not prefer to talk about SRH with their children.This study aimed at assessing parents’ perception towards educating adolescents about sexual and reproductive health. Objectives of this study were to explore parents’ acceptability in educating adolescents on SRH, to analyze factors that led them to educate and forms they used to educate, to identify challenges faced by parents on educating adolescents about SRH, and to investigate adolescents’ sources of knowledge about SRH. The respondents for this study were parents and adolescents from primary and secondary school. Purposive and random samplings were used to obtain respondents from this study. The study used both qualitative and quantitative research methods. Data were collected from primary and secondary sources whereby questionnaires were used as instruments. Data were collected from the field and were analyzed according to the research objectives by using SPSS and thematic analysis. Results were presented in various forms including tables and figures. The study findings shows that 79% of the parents strongly supported that they should talk with their adolescents about SRH but their culture prohibit them from doing so. Two-thirds of parents play big role in educating adolescents about SRH. The main attributing factors to educate the adolescents were HIV/AIDS (37%), early pregnancy (25%), and body changes ( 23) %. The study further revealed that methods used to educate were friendly advice (38.7%) and warning method (32.2% ) . The study findings also showed that (37.2%) of parents did not educate their adolescents about sexual and reproductive health. This was because they faced different challenges such as cultural taboos, shyness, and lack of knowledge. Others included parents being afraid of adolescents to practice what they have been taught and lack of time. Education on SRH for adolescents seems to be initiated at the onset of puberty as 43.3% of the parents preferred to start educating them between the age of 12 and13 years and when a child was thought to be involved in sex. Also the study revealed that most adolescents get their SRH knowledge from teachers ( 64.2% ) and from magazine (14%) . Finally, the study recommends that parents have to be encouraged to accept that they are the primary educators of their children. The content of reproductive health knowledge which parents give to their adolescents had to be effective and include all important components and their challenges.