Family Life Education Experiences and Expectations of Secondary School Girls in Akure, Ondo State, Nigeria (Published)
There are more people between the ages of 10 and 19 in Africa than any other age group. Adolescent sexual and reproductive health remains a serious public health concern in Africa; where, child marriage, adolescent childbearing, HIV transmission, and limited coverage of modern contraception are frequent. Family life education (FLE) is one of Nigeria’s strategies towards promoting reproductive rights and health of the people. The purpose of this research was to examine the perspective of secondary school girls in Akure, Nigeria, on their family life education and experiences. The research followed a descriptive cross-sectional design. A total of 270 senior secondary school girls selected through a multistage sampling technique participated in the study. A tool previously used for a study on mother-adolescent daughter sexuality communication pattern was adapted for data collection. The results revealed the mean age of the girls as 14.2 years and almost all the girls have heard about FLE issues. The most reportedly heard about were those related to human development (98.3%); while, the least were those related to sexual health (87%). Most (43.8%) of the FLE issues were heard from the mothers; 16.7% from teachers, 14.1% from friends, 12% from the media, 5.7% from fathers, 5.5% from religious leaders, and only 2.2% from health providers. Majority (58.5%) of the respondents opined that it is a mother’s responsibility to talk to her children about sexuality and reproductive health. Only Mothers and Health providers seemed to have provided less information than perceived as their responsibilities by the girls. Statistical difference between the source of FLE issues and the girls’ perception of whose responsibility it was, was significant at p 0.0014. Implication of the findings for nursing is the need to further empower nurses through pre-service and in-service training on adolescent sexuality communication for effective adolescent friendly services, and to effectively support mothers on their roles as sexuality communicator to their daughters.
Keywords: Girls, Reproductive Health, adolescent sexuality, family life education