Adolescent self reported reproductive morbidity and health care seeking behaviour in Bangladesh

Rahman Mizanur, Jahangirnagar University

Addressing reproductive health issues of women especially adolescents is now on the global social agenda. In this paper, an attempt was made to assess the magnitude of self reported gynaecological morbidity unrelated to childbearing among the adolescents irrespective of their marital status. The paper also explored the determinants of health care seeking behaviour of the adolescents for their reproductive ailments. A nationally representative data on 2883 adolescents irrespective of their marital status were analysed. Analyses revealed a large proportion of the adolescents reportedly have been suffering from gynaecological morbidity. The most frequent morbidity was menstrual disorders followed by lower abdominal pain, burning sensation during urination, genital itching, and vaginal discharge. Multivariate logistic regression analysis was done to identify the predictors of adolescent’s reproductive morbidity. Only one fifth adolescents sought health care for their gynaecological ailments indicating that adolescents are unaware about their reproductive morbidity. Adolescent reproductive health in Bangladesh indicates high incidence of maternal morbidity.