Amsterdam 2015
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| Abstract #2082 - Needs and interventions for school-aged populations | ||||
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Session: 19.5: Needs and interventions for school-aged populations (Parallel) on Wednesday @ 16.30-18.00 in C103 Chaired by Mark Orkin, Larry Brown Authors: Presenting Author: Mr John Kingsley Krugu - Youth Harvest Foundation Ghana, Ghana |
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| Additional Authors: | ||||
| Aim: Unsafe sexual practices among adolescents are a widespread phenomenon, resulting in high rates of sexually transmitted infections (STIs) and high incidence of unintended teen pregnancies. Both STIs and unplanned teen pregnancies have negative physical, social, psychological and economic consequences for the victims, their families and for society in general. An effective sex education programme addressing the determinants of adolescent risky sexual behaviours will not only prevent too early unplanned teen pregnancies but also STIs and contribute to the attainment of a number of the Millennium Development Goals. However, effective school based sexuality education remains a grey area in the school curriculum of many African countries despite convincing evidence showing that schools present good settings for delivering sex education. The present study evaluated the effects of a comprehensive sex education programme in northern Ghana. The programme dubbed Youth Supporting Peers and Encouraging Empowerment through Knowledge (Youth SPEEK) is one of few large-scale evaluation studies of a school-based comprehensive sex education programme targeting junior high school students conducted in a West African rural setting. | ||||
| Method / Issue: Twenty-one schools within the Bolgatanga Municipality in northern Ghana were assigned to either interventions or comparison conditions. Students in 10 schools received a 10-session, skills-based pregnancy and STIs prevention curriculum implemented by trained peer educators. A total of 1821 students completed at least one survey during the study period surveys were matched across three time points at baseline, post-test and six months follow-up. | ||||
| Results / Comments: In the short-term post-test analysis, the results of the study showed that students receiving the Youth SPEEK programme were significantly better able to explain the biological processes resulting in pregnancy, better able to explain how to use a condom, and had more positive attitudes towards exercising their sexual rights and towards carrying condoms with them when going out for social activities compared to students in the control group. In addition, the students in the intervention group also had a higher perception of being able to decide when and with whom to have sexual intercourse, were more convinced and confident enough to use a condom in future when having sexual intercourse, had higher intentions of using condoms in their next sexual intercourse, and perceived themselves to be more at risk of contracting STIs if they have sex without using condoms as compared to the control group. However, the long-term analysis show that all observed positive effects of the programme on the intervention group at immediate post-test disappeared at the six months follow up. | ||||
| Discussion: Skill-based and lengthier intervention offering the opportunity for repeated exposure to the same topics may be necessary to sustain programme effects over time. A skill-based approach will not only improve skills but could also promote more active learning which probably results in more effective transfer of information. | ||||
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