ABSTRACT
Adolescence is a period that is characterized by growth and development rapidly. They have only limited knowledge regarding sexual and reproductive health (SRH). Adolescents girls are more marginalized and face many problems in society. Owing to a lack of knowledge on SRH, they succumb to various situations such as unhealthy menstrual hygiene practices, unwanted sex, teenage pregnancy, unsafe abortions, reproductive tract infections (RTIs), and sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) such as HIV/AIDS. These have adverse effects on their mental health. This article reviews the literature to explore the knowledge, attitude, practices, and life skills regarding SRH among adolescent girls. Need for the inclusion of SRH and life skill education for adolescents in schools, strengthening health care programs, and involvement of various Non-Governmental organizations (NGO for adolescent wellbeing. A Search of relevant publications between 2011 and 2020 was done through multiple electronic databases such as MEDLINE, PUBMED, and Google scholar. A manual search on world health statistics, national programs regarding SRH was done.
ABSTRACT
CONTEXT: Progress of any nation depends on the health status of the population. A nation's health directly and indirectly depends on the quality of health-care facilities and how healthy the health care workforce is in that country. To achieve the health for all goal and to provide for most of the health services like maternal health services, child health services, nutrition, vaccination, and family planning services, the Indian health system have multipurpose health workers (female and male) and Accredited Social Health Activist to provide these services at the grass-root level. There is a paucity of literature revealing the health problems or the health status of grassroot level primary health care worker in India or abroad. METHODS AND MATERIAL: All the grass-root level health workers, i.e., MPHWF and ASHAs in the BMC area were included in this cross-sectional study. Data was collected using a semi-structured interview schedule, followed by general examination and anthropometry using standard procedures. RESULTS: Half of the study participants 111 (50.2%) were having some or other kind of health issues during the data collection time; among them, 107 (48.4%) had a chronic disease condition. 10% of them had diabetes mellitus. More than half of the study participants 141 (63.8%) were found to be obese and hypertension was found in 27 (12.2%) study participants. 21 (9.5%) study participants were under high depression. One-fourth of the health workers among those who could conceive had not gone for antenatal check-ups and more than one-third (33.5%) never consumed iron and folic acid (IFA) tablets during their first pregnancy. 19.1% have children with incomplete immunization as per age. One-fifth of the participants know about the balanced diet and half of them could not ensure that their family eat a balanced diet and in the majority, the diet was calorie deficient as per the daily requirement. CONCLUSIONS: There is an urgent need to formulate a policy to improve the health of the primary care grass-root level health-care workers and regular on-the-job training on nutrition needs to be given to them.
