Parenting and Adolescents’ Adoption of Risky Sexual Behaviours in Awutu Senya East Municipality of the Central Region of Ghana

Abstract

Adolescents represent the future leaders of every nation; therefore, their concerns should be given priority and handled as a public health issue. Adolescents are individuals between 10 – 19 years and constitute about 18% of the world population. However, one of the issues which threaten adolescent’s potential to attaining their future goals is risky sexual behaviours and its undesirable outcome. Risky sexual behaviours are those that expose an individual (adolescents) to the risk of sexually transmitted infections (STIs) including HIV and unplanned pregnancies. The study adopted a descriptive cross-sectional design using quantitative approach was adopted. Data was collected using a structured questionnaire. The quantitative data were obtained from one adolescent per all households within five selected community. Both descriptive and inferential statistics used. The study established that several factors accounted for this phenomenon. Among these are demographic characteristics of adolescents like age, ethnicity, religion, level of education and gender. The effects of parenting such as living with single or both parents, how close parent are to their adolescents' boys or girls, having sex education and knowing the sexual partners of the adolescent. The age at sex debut and drinking of alcohol and smoking determined whether an adolescent would use a condom or not during sexual intercourses. The study concluded that 32% of the adolescent are sexually active but do not use a condom during sexual intercourse.