Abstract:
The purpose of the study was to investigate the socio-demographic correlates of reproductive health services utilization among in-school female adolescents in Enugu South LGA Enugu State. The correlational survey research design was adopted for the study. Seven research questions and three null hypotheses were used to guide the study. The population for the study comprised of 13, 941 in-school female adolescents. The Multi-stage sampling procedure was adopted to draw 418 in-school female adolescents that were used for the study. The instrument for data collection was the researcher-developed instrument titled; socio-demographic correlates of reproductive health services utilization questionnaire (SCRHSUQ). The instrument was face-validated by five experts. The reliability of the instrument was determined using estimate of internal consistency through Kuder-Richardson (K-R20) statistic and a reliability index of .77 was obtained. Data collected were analyzed using frequencies, percentages, Pearson’s product moment correlation coefficient and Pearson’s Chi-square statistic. The study revealed that low proportion of in-school female adolescents utilized reproductive health services (sexuality education services, 24.30%), (safe motherhood services, 35.4%), (post-abortion care services, 17.2%), (prevention and treatment of STIs, HIV/AIDS services, 22.8%). The study also showed that there was a weak negative relationship between age (φ = -.146, p = .004), and a weak positive relationship between religion (φ = .141, p = .062) and school location (φ = .132, p = .005) and utilization of reproductive health services among in-school female adolescents. The null hypotheses revealed a significant relationship (χ2= 8.396, df= 1, p-value= .004) between age of in-school female adolescents and utilization of RHS; while there was no significant relationship between religion (χ2 = .195, df= 1, p-value= .659), location (χ2= .019, df= 1, p-value= .546) and utilization of RHS among in-school female adolescents. Based on the above findings, it was concluded that utilization of reproductive health services by in-school female adolescents is dependent on their age, and independent of religion and school location. It was recommended among others that parents, teachers, health educators and other relevant stakeholders should enlighten female adolescents on the importance of utilizing reproductive health services. This will continually increase the proportion of female adolescents utilizing such services around them irrespective of their age, religion and school location.
