Knowledge and responsibility regarding teaching teenage girl’s reproductive healthcare: views of Eastern Cape Province teachers
- Authors: Hendricks, Thenjiwe
- Date: 2018
- Subjects: Reproductive health -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape , Teenage pregnancy -- South Africa -- Port Elizabeth High school teachers -- South Africa -- Port Elizabeth
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MCur
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10948/30094 , vital:30824
- Description: Teachers play a vital role in educating and teaching of children at school. One of the areas for teaching responsibility is development of the individual learner to be a competent community member, either as a professional or as an otherwise- skilled person. It is therefore for that reason that the South African government introduced into the curriculum at school level a subject that is directed at life orientation to empower learners. Teachers bear the responsibility of teaching this subject. One of the topics in the Life Orientation subject is Reproductive Healthcare, which is supposed to empower the learners especially with matters of sex and sexuality, diseases included. Despite the teaching of this topic in schools, the rate of teenage pregnancies and occurrence of sexually -transmitted infections remains on the increase in the country. Although much literature exists about teenage pregnancy in the country, there is theoretical paucity on how teachers view their responsibility to teach reproductive healthcare. The questions that prompted and have been raised in this study have been: How much do school teachers know about reproductive healthcare? How do school teachers view the responsibility given to them of teaching the reproductive healthcare? What kind of assistance is needed by the school teachers with regard to their responsibility towards teaching the reproductive healthcare topic? The objectives developed for the study were to: explore the knowledge of school teachers with regard to reproductive healthcare; explore and describe the views of school teachers with regard to their responsibility to teach the reproductive healthcare topic to teenage girls ;and develop guidelines for schools to assist school teachers with regard to their responsibility to teach the reproductive healthcare topic to teenage girls. Following the granting of the necessary university permission and approval from other relevant authorities, the study was conducted between May and June 2017, using a qualitative explorative, descriptive and contextual design. The research population and sample was school teachers specifically those who were working at public high schools, in the Sarah Baartman and Makana districts and Nelson Mandela Bay Municipal area. Furthermore, the teachers were from schools that were using the Life Orientation curriculum. Sampling was done purposively. Data was collected by means of focus-group semi-structured interviews that were captured by means of a digital voice-recorder and an interview schedule consisting of four questions. The number of participants ranged from four to five per focus group. Field notes were also written down to record non-verbal cues and events observed from the participants during the interview sessions. Altogether twenty teachers participated in this study. From the twenty participants six teachers were part of the pilot study and an additional fourteen were the ultimate sample size. From the fourteen participants four focus -group interviews were conducted. The collected data was analysed following the spiral data -analysis method as indicated by de Vos. As findings, three themes emerged and were the following. Teachers view their responsibility to teach reproductive healthcare to teenage girls as burdensome. Teachers identified the changes to the curriculum as a concern that was affecting their teaching of the topic. Furthermore, the teachers related positively to the need for teaching of the reproductive healthcare topic at schools. Based on these findings and the guidance of the model adopted for the study, that of the Health Promotion Model, three main guidelines were developed. These guidelines will teachers on how best to meet their responsibility of teaching the reproductive topic to teenage girls. The guidelines were to: create a set of core values that form the basis of responsibility to teach reproductive healthcare to teenage girls; devise a plan that will assist participants to deal with the immediate burden of teaching reproductive healthcare but also for future purposes and create an atmosphere that would increase the positivity of teachers towards teaching reproductive healthcare to teenage girls. Furthermore, recommendations for clinical nursing practice, nursing education and nursing research were developed. Trustworthiness of the study was maintained by using the criteria of credibility, transferability, dependability and confirmability. Ethical principles adopted in this study were those of beneficence, maleficence, justice and respect while applying the strategies of permission, informed consent, privacy, confidentiality and anonymity.
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- Date Issued: 2018
Exploring schoolgoing teenage girls' knowledge regarding reproductive healthcare in the Eastern Cape Province
- Authors: Titus, Luzane Jesica , Rall, Nadine
- Date: 2017
- Subjects: Reproductive health -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape , Teenage pregnancy -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape Midwifery -- Standards -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MCur
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10948/13702 , vital:27300
- Description: The increased rate of teenagers suffering from reproductive healthcare -related conditions is a global phenomenon. An estimated 16 million teenage girls aged between 15 and 19 years give birth every year with 95% of these births occurring in the developing countries. In South Africa one notes from recorded statistics that 20000 school going teenagers fell pregnant in South Africa during 2014. These statistics left many questions to be answered in terms of what information school going teenage girls do receive at school. Formally the current school curriculum in South Africa includes a subject around life skills orientation which is known as Life Orientation Programme and in which learners are introduced to reproductive healthcare from grade 7; but a persistent increase in the rate of pregnancies and sexually-transmitted infections amongst school going teenage girls is observed. The aim of the study was to explore and describe the knowledge of school going teenage girls regarding reproductive healthcare and services in the Eastern Cape Province. The objectives of this study were:-to determine and explore the knowledge of school going teenage girls regarding reproductive healthcare in the Eastern Cape Province; -to determine the nature of information given to school going teenage girls regarding reproductive healthcare through the school Life-Orientation programme; and,-based on the results of the entire study, develop guidelines that could assist the stakeholders in health and education professions in enhancing of knowledge regarding reproductive healthcare of school going teenage girls and improving their access to related services. A quantitative design with a descriptive, exploratory and contextual approach was used. A survey was conducted and the data -collection tool was a self-administered, structured questionnaire developed by the researcher with the assistance of the supervisor and the statistician. Validity and reliability were assured before data collection commenced. A convenience, non-probability sampling method was used to collect data from schoolgoing teenage girls that gave permission to participate and met the inclusion criteria of:- schools having school going teenage girls between the ages of 12 and 19 years in the Eastern Cape Province, - being within the Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality areaand the Sarah Baartman district and -the schoolgoing teenage girls being in grades 10 to 12. Data was collected in September 2016 from a total of 314 teenagers who participated and returned the completed questionnaires. The data was captured by the researcher and analysed using a Microsoft excel programme created by the statistician for data - analysis purposes. STATISTICA Version 12 computer software application was used. The study results revealed that learners received some reproductive healthcare related education in Life-orientationprogramme lessons; but the information was seen as insufficient. Parents were telling them about their body development; but were not discussing reproductive healthcare issues with them. Participants did not know how to use the different methods of contraceptives correctly though they knew about the methods. Participants did not know about other signs of complications of reproductive healthcare as they did not know how to identify sexually-transmitted infections, breast and vaginal infections and related problems. Based on the above study results guidelines wasdeveloped as the necessary tool to facilitate the enhancement of schoolgoing girls’ knowledge regarding reproductive healthcare in the Eastern Cape Province. The study adopted the Belmont Report principles, namely, respect for persons, beneficence and justice, to enhance ethical considerations.
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- Date Issued: 2017