| dc.description.abstract | Adolescents account for 20% of the world’s population, and the majority of them are
inhabitants of developing countries. Increasing sexual activity amongst adolescents is a public
health concern because it can lead to teenage pregnancy which in turn leads to an increase in
relative poverty, unemployment, poorer educational achievements (for the adolescent) and
poor health of unborn children. Contraceptive use gives females the ability to make informed
decisions about their fertility as well as greatly reduce female morbidity and mortality. Despite
freely available contraception and accessible reproductive health policies and facilities, a
majority of adolescents still report unintended, unplanned pregnancies.
The aim of the present study was to describe knowledge, attitudes and practices associated with
contraceptives, and the facilitators and barriers that influence contraceptive use amongst
adolescent girls in selected public secondary schools in a low-socio-economic community in
Cape Town, South Africa.
The researcher adopted a quantitative cross-sectional descriptive design – more specifically, a
knowledge, attitudes and practices (KAP) survey. The study used a multistage sampling
method. The sample size was calculated to be N = 371 (5% confidence interval and a
confidence level of 95%).The data collection instrument was a survey in the form of a selfadministered questionnaire with 4 sections that had been adapted for the South African
context, from a previously validated instrument. The questionnaire was then pretested and
finalised. All data was captured in Microsoft Excel and analysed using SPSS 25.0.
The study found that 97% of respondents had knowledge of contraceptives. The 3 most
commonly known contraceptives were injection (81.1%), the pill (65.0%) and condoms
(61.7%). Their main source of accessing contraceptives was a clinic (86.8%) and the biggest
source of contraceptive knowledge was identified as school (82.7%). Their attitudes
comprised positive and negative aspects. The respondents did not believe that it was difficult | en_US |
