Awareness and access to reproductive health care among adolescents

Rachana Patel, International Institute for Population Sciences (IIPS)

The study reveals that Men were having more knowledge about contraception, STDs and HIV/AIDS as compared to women. The main sources of knowledge were media/peer group as well as education. Unmarried women and men were having more knowledge than their married counterparts. More than three fourth of the adolescent women utilised for ANC services. However, only 40 percent of the women had institutional delivery. Further, stark regional differences were observed in institutional delivery. Southern and western regions seemed to fare better in case of ANC and institutional delivery than other regions. Nearly a quarter of the adolescent women experienced any type of complications during pregnancy and the percentage was relatively less in the case of delivery complication. The factor such as place of residence, caste, region and education of spouse, parity and wealth index were found to have significant effects on different components of reproductive health.