Sexual and reproductive health service utilization and associated factors among high school learners in the Dawuro zone, Southwest Ethiopia

Abstract

Adolescents' and youths’ death in sub-Saharan Africa was the highest in the world according to the 2019 WHO fact sheet report. About 80% of the global youth in the age range of 15-24 years are living with unmet needs for sexual and reproductive health services. A school-based cross-sectional study was conducted from the 1st of September 2020 to the 30 of June 2021 in the Dawuro Zone, to assess the prevalence of sexual and reproductive health service utilization and factors associated with employing the binary logistic regression model. The prevalence of sexual and reproductive health (SRH) service utilization was 26% in this study. Discussion with family/peers on the SRH service issues, exposure to media, having pocket money, and previous awareness creation on SRH service issues were variables statistically significant with an adjusted odds ratio (AOR) with a 95% confidence interval (CI) of 1.81(1.27-2.26),1.47(1.04-2.09),1.54(1.09-2.2), and 2.82(2.01-3.95) respectively at p value< 0.05. The 26% was the low utilization of SRH service.