Knowledge of Girls on Reproductive Health and their Desire for Communication with Mothers about this

Background and Adolescent-mothers communication about reproductive health is one of the strategies that could decrease youth risky behaviors. This study aimed to find out the desire for communication, its level and content between adolescents and their mothers on reproductive health.
In a descriptive study, 655 high school girls in Mazandaran, Iran were selected via stratified sampling (2015-16). The level of communication between adolescents and their mothers or any problem on this, the desire to talk to mothers and their active interaction about reproductive health was examined by adapted standard questionnaires.
The mean score for adolescent’s knowledge on reproductive health was 5.76±1.45 out of 10. The mean scores for level of communication between adolescents and their mothers, any problems in the communication and the desire to talk to mothers were 34.12± 6.10, 31.83± 4.31, and 7.58± 4.17, respectively. The main topics of talks were puberty (83.7%) and sexual relationship (15.5%). The maximum duration of talks was 5-10 minutes (33%) in the preceding six months (35.4%). About one third of the girls were satisfied with the talks to their mothers (34.5%) and felt comfortable in having a discussion with them about reproductive health (31.3%).
Most adolescents did not communicate with mothers about reproductive health and their knowledge on it was weak. The adolescent-mothers communication and solving any barrier on this should be addressed. Nevertheless, implementation of programs on reproductive health sensitize both adolescents and mothers on the importance of having communication about it.