Assessment of factors influencing utilization of youth friendly reproductive health services among adolescents and youth in Samburu county, Kenya

Abstract

Reproductive health continues to be a worldwide priority because of the gap and challenges that exist in the status of youth’s health between developed and developing countries. The underutilization of reproductive health care services by youth put them at risk in Kenya.Utilization of these services requires voluntary participation; however, there could be a the number of factors that make the youth most likely not to utilize reproductive health care services and this study seeks to pinpoint the reasons for this trend. The main objective of the study was to assess factors affecting the scaling-up utilization of reproductive health services among adolescents & youth in pastoral in Samburu County, Kenya. Qualitative and quantitative approaches to data collection were used. An analytical cross-sectional study technique was employed as qualitative and quantitative methods of data gathering. A sample size of 252 study respondents was produced using the Fischer formula. Purposive, systematic, and simple random sampling were employed to collect quantitative data, while purposive sampling was applied to select the KII & focused group discussion participants. SPSS version 26 was used to examine quantitative data while thematic analysis was used to examine qualitative data. Both Bivariate and binary logistic regression analyses were used to assess the degree of relationship between independent and dependent variables. In this study, the utilization of youth-friendly reproductive health services was 40.6%. VCT was the most(96.8%) utilized youth-friendly reproductive health service. The presence of an RH facility, having visited an RH facility, being aware of RH problems, having good knowledge, the presence of religious influence and community mobilization campaign increased the odds of utilizing youth-friendly reproductive health services while healthcare providers' bad attitude and lack of privacy, the presence of peer pressure, and Being male and single in the marital status category reduced the odds of utilizing youth-friendly reproductive health services. Findings from this study informed the concerned stakeholders in the concerned community on the best strategies to be implemented to enhance and improve the uptake of youth-friendly reproductive healthcare services ultimately led to a healthier population.