YOGYAKARTA- Adolescents are very vulnerable to pre-marital sexual behaviour that can lead to pregnancy in teenagers or infection of sexually transmitted disease. There are 7.3 million cases of adolescent birth rate in developing world such as Indonesia, with two million of them are under 15 years of age, while 3.2 million of teenagers between 15-19 years of age experience unsafe abortion.
In Indonesia, the BKKBN reported in 2013 that the number of adolescent birth mortality was 70 thousand. Thus, preventive efforts are needed through nursing services at school.
This was said by lecturer in Nursing Science of Faculty of Medicine UGM, Wenny Artanty Nisman, in her open doctoral promotion at Faculty of Medicine UGM on Friday (21/7). In her dissertation titled Intervention Model of Services at School for Adolescent Reproductive Health Education, Wenny highlighted the need for increased effort on adolescent health reproduction through special mental and behaviour accompaniment at school. “Schools should give services in reproductive health by approaching problems in adolescent reproductive health so they can monitor the changes that are found in adolescent behaviours,” she said.
Research was conducted in two ways, qualitative through interviews with 16 teachers, 13 parents and 19 students. Next, quantitative research was done in two schools in Yogyakarta, involving 134 students that were divided into 2 groups, the first 68 students were given personal and social skills training on reproductive health education, the next 66 students (control group) were given routine intervention through reproductive health education for six months.
The research concludes an increase in the trust among adolescents to prevent pre-marital sex, particularly in the control group. There is also increase in healthy dating behaviour in the intervention group which is higher than in the control group. Besides, there is an increase in behaviour to say no to pre-marital sex in the intervention group, while on the other hand there is a decrease in the control group. “There appeared to be increased capacity value in decision making related to pre-marital sex in the intervention group,” she said.
In her opinion, the adolescents that have intervention in reproductive health is more aware and serious paying attention to reproductive health. School support is very important if they can carry out programme for health services in school. “There needs to be intervention in nursing services by personal and social skills training to improve the adolescent behaviours, particularly on healthy dating, and behaviour to say no to pre-marital sex,” she said.