Healthcare workers’ attitudes and factors affecting sexual and reproductive health services to adolescents in refugee settlements, western Uganda

Abstract

Abstract Introduction Adolescent sexual and reproductive health care needs are rising in both low and middle-income countries. This need is even higher in refugee settlements. This study aimed to assess the healthcare workers’ attitudes and the factors affecting adolescent sexual and reproductive health care in the Nakivale, Kyaka II, and Rwamwanja refugee settlements. Methods This was a cross-sectional quantitative study in which health workers from public and private health facilities from three randomly selected refugee communities in western Uganda responded to a questionnaire. The questionnaire collected information on services provided, the attitudes towards each of the services and the factors that hindered the provision of these services. Binary logistic regression was done to assess the baseline characteristics associated with provision of these services using SPSS version 26. Results Of the 386 medical professionals enrolled, 194(50.3%) were females with a mean age of 30.9 years (SD = 6.9). The services that were most commonly offered were contraception counselling/provision (81.3%), HIV prevention/care (79.0%), sexually transmitted infections prevention (78.5%) and comprehensive sexuality education provision (75.1%). The least offered services were safe abortion care (40.9%) and harmful traditional practice prevention (39.9%). The good attitudes were highest towards comprehensive sexuality education and antenatal, intrapartum plus postnatal care while the bad attitudes were highest toward safe abortion care. Inadequate training, age, residence, education level, designation and type of facility had a significant association with offering of the different services (P < 0.05 for all at multivariate level of analysis). Conclusion More efforts are still required toward provision of safe abortion care and harmful traditional practices prevention. This will be achieved by providing training which will be vital in improving knowledge and attitude toward these services. The training should be more focused on the older professionals and non-councilors.