Utilisation of contraceptives by adolescent girls in selected secondary schools in Chongwe district.

This study was an investigation into utilisation of contraceptives by adolescent girls in selected secondary schools in Chongwe district. The objectives of this study were to ascertain the use of contraceptives by the school going adolescents in secondary schools, to investigate the types of contraceptives used by the school going adolescents in secondary schools, to evaluate negative and positive effect of contraceptives use by adolescents in secondary schools and to examine the effectiveness of the role played by the Ministry of Health on the use of contraceptive use of the adolescence children in secondary schools. The sampling procedure used in this study was purposive and stratified random sampling. In this case, an equal number of participants was randomly selected to avoid over representation of the sample and therefore leading to erroneous interpretation of data. A case study design was used so as to have a clear knowledge on the use of contraceptives by the girls in Chongwe district. Data was collected from a total sample of 70 participants. Data was mainly collected through interviews and focus group discussions. The main findings of this research were that most of the girls had knowledge about contraceptives and were actually using them mostly to prevent unwanted pregnancies and not having monthly periods. Most of the girls were in favour of injectable contraceptives as compared to other ones. Furthermore, girls indicated that contraceptives had both positive and negative side effects such as good flow of monthly periods, delayed pregnancies on positive part as well as abnormal weight gain, blood clots, reduced libido and headaches as negative effects. In addition, the Ministry of Health was committed in the provision of contraceptives although some nurses had negative attitudes towards use of contraceptives and advocated for abstinence. The recommendations were therefore that the Sexuality education should be promoted and encouraged in schools. Schools should encourage girls to concentrate on education and help them realise their full potential and expose a lot of role models so that these school going girls do not put sexual relations as priority. The study therefore concludes that contraceptives have helped a lot of girls finish there Secondary education and there is drastic reduction in pregnancies among school girls.