School health nurses have a responsibility to guide adolescents in their decision making about reproductive health. This is necessary because studies have established that risky decision-making in reproductive health accounts for a large proportion of adolescent mortality. Adolescent reproductive health entails unprotected sex, unsafe abortion, and HIV/AIDs. Guiding adolescents in their decision making about reproductive health is an adaptive role of school health nurses which requires they are prepared to take up the role. The purpose of the study was to explore the experiences of school health nurses on the provision of guidance to adolescents in their decision making about reproductive health. This is an exploratory, descriptive and contextual study. The study took place in the secondary school environment. Qualitative research approach was used for the study. The participants for the study were purposively selected from among school health nurses and adolescents. Semi-structured interviews and focus group discussions were used to obtain data for school health nurses and school adolescents respectively. Interview guide was developed to direct the questions during the interview sessions. The data collected was transcribed in verbatim, and inductive content analysis which entails which entails coding, and organizing the texts into meaningful sub categories and categories to form themes, was employed. The findings from the data showed that what school health nurses provide is not proximate to guidance rather some form of health talk which has no bearing on decision-making process of adolescents in reproductive health. Findings further show that they lack adequate skills and the knowledge of processes involved in guidance. Furthermore, there is a reflection of poor communication between school health nurses and adolescents which eliminated the trust and confidence school health nurses needed to gain in adolescents before dyadic guidance session could take place. School health nurses need to move beyond their formalized roles toward adaptive and proactive ones as this helps in further evolving a true professional status. Their contributions toward reducing adolescent mortality can be harnessed through the provision of adequate guidance to adolescents in their decision making on reproductive health and this requires that they are knowledgeable.
- Oluwatoyin | A. | Ogunyewo | vicyommie@gmail.com | +234, Savasthian | Arunachallam | . | @ | +233
- Adolescent Mortality, Unprotected Sex, Unsafe Abortion.
- EXPERIENCES OF SCHOOL HEALTH NURSES
