Abstract

Youths are facing different sexual and reproductive health problems. Most  health  services  for  youth  are  designed  for adults  and  do  not  always  have  favorable  conditions  to meet  the  special  needs  of  youths. As well, youths have been characterized by low sexual and reproductive health service utilization. Identifying and integrating young people preferences and needs regarding health facility helps better to serve the youth. Sexual and reproductive health needs and service utilization among youths in West Badewacho Woreda, Hadiya Zone, South Ethiopia was assess. A cross sectional study was conducted from 1 to 30 March, 2014 in West Badewacho Woreda, Hadiya Zone, South Ethiopia. A simple random sampling technique was used and total sample size was 658 youths. Data were entered into epi data 3.1 and exported to Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) version 20. Descriptive statics for age and family size, proportion for categorical variables, bivarate and multivariate logistic regression analysis were performed. Total of 640 subjects participated in the study and yielded 97.3% response rate. Out of total participants, 25.8% ever had sex. From the total respondents, 76.3% need at least one component of sexual and reproductive health services. During multivariate analysis sex, age, knowledge about reproductive health, participation in peer education, youth educational status and ever had sex were predictors to have reproductive health service need. Out of the total participants, only 29.4% youths utilized reproductive health services in the last one year. In multivariate analysis, ever had sex (Aor3.080, 95%ci [1.918 to 4.944]), ever heard about sexual and reproductive health (Aor=2.016, 95%ci [1.308 to 3.106]) and had need to reproductive health services (Aor= 8.564, 95% [4.080 to 17.977]) were predictors to sexual and reproductive health service utilization. Youths have imprecise sexual and reproductive health knowledge.  In  contrast  to  the  huge  sexual and reproductive health needs,  the  services  provided  by  the  nearby health facility are  far from addressing the needs even if the services were available its unfriendliness to youths resulted in less utilization of the available services.

Key word: Youths, adolescent, sexual, reproductive health, service utilization.