Abstract:
Adolescent health problems are quite alarming and have daring consequences
on public health globally. This study was designed to explore adolescents’
knowledge level, perception, and attitude of adolescent friendly health services
(AFHS) on their utilization of the service in Cape Coast Circuit in Ghana.
Frequency counts, percentage scores, and Chi-square were used to analyse the
results. It was found that, the awareness level of adolescents in JHS, in the Cape
Coast Circuit on AFHS is low (n = 214, 43.6%). The perceptions of the
adolescents on the utilisation of the AFHS in Cape Coast Circuit centers are that
staff at the AFH centers have adequate time for them (n = 379, 77.2%) and that
they are friendly (n = 372, 75.8%). The main attitudes of the adolescents were
that they would visit AFHS centers if the services were free (n = 432, 88%), and
available within the community (n = 411, 83.7%). The study also showed that
adolescents’ level of utilisation of AFHSs in Cape Coast Circuit is low (25.5%).
None of the socio-demographic factors (gender and age) influences adolescent
utilisation of AFHSs (P> .05).It was recommended that; school health education
in corporation with community education should be strengthened on AFHS,
healthcare providers should be encouraged to continue to be friendly and devote
adequate time to their clients when they visit the AFHS centers. Health
stakeholders should ensure that AFHSs are continuously free and accessible to
adolescents. They should target adolescents irrespective of age, gender,
religious and cultural affiliation to administer the services to them.
