AWARENESS AND ATTITUDES REGARDING ADOLESCENT REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH IN THE REPUBLIC OF SRPSKA
Results of a large amount of research show that adolescents are not sufficiently informed when it comes to reproductive health. The aim of this paper was to investigate how well informed adolescents in the Republic of Srpska were about reproductive health and what their attitudes towards it were. The research was designed as a cross-sectional study which included 683 adolescents - 562 12 years old and 121 15-year-old adolescents from eight regions in the Republic of Srpska. The data on pupils’ knowledge of and attitudes towards reproductive health was collected through a questionnaire – survey which pupils completed individually in the presence of trained interviewers, who were available in case of difficulties with understanding questions. Methods of Descriptive Statistics were used to describe the sample in question, and the χ 2 test was used to determine statistical significance of differences in age. By analyzing the awareness of the 12-year-olds and 15-year-olds, it was found that there was a statistically significant difference in the distribution of answers to the following questions: What is puberty? (χ 2 =8.050; p<0.01), What is menstruation? (χ 2 =11.935; p<0.01), What is conception? (χ 2 =22.974; p<0.01), What is abortion? (χ 2 =8.851; p<0.01). According to this research, every fourth 12-year-old and eighth 15year-old received information on reproductive health from their parents. Most young people (54.9%) would ask their parents for advice on solving sexual life issues, while only 2.8% would ask their teacher. Every fourth adolescent would ask their peers for advice on solving sexual life issues. Out of all adolescents that took this survey, 79.1% think that it would be useful to have Sexual Education as a school subject. Results of this research indicated the need for more intense implementation of education programmes in the field of reproductive health among adolescents in the Republic of Srpska. Acta Medica Medianae 2013;52(1):9-15.