The Utilization of Youth Friendly Sexual and Reproductive Health Services and its Association with Socio-demographic Factors and Knowledge in Nakuru County, Kenya

There are global drives towards supporting adolescents' sexual and reproductive health and rights, access to and use of these services among young people in low- and middle-income countries. However, the utilization of Friendly Sexual and Reproductive Health Services remains inadequate, posing a major challenge to progress in this area. This study aimed to examine the utilization of Youth Friendly Sexual and Reproductive Health Services and its association with socio-demographic factors and knowledge in Nakuru County, Kenya. This was a cross-sectional study done in one county in Kenya purposively selected and involved a sample of 400 youths (10-24 years). The response rate was 90 % (n=400). About two-thirds (64%, n=340) of the sampled youths were affirmative to using the Youth-Friendly Sexual and Reproductive Health Services which is considered suboptimal. Whereby it is evident that Kenya is doing better in the utilization of Youth-Friendly Sexual and Reproductive Health Services than its peer countries in the region, it has not achieved the target of 85% utilization as envisaged in the Adolescent Reproductive Health and Development Plan of Action 2005-2015. The utilization of Youth-Friendly Sexual and Reproductive Health Services of significantly associated with the level of education (x2(2) =0.256, p=0.002) and awareness/being knowledgeable (x2(1) =0.019, p=0.001) on Youth Friendly Sexual and Reproductive Health Services. This study thus recommends that policies and programs to upscale the utilization of Youth-Friendly Sexual and Reproductive Health Services should focus on building a knowledge base for the youths on the said subject. Furthermore, the curriculums should introduce aspects of Youth-Friendly Sexual and Reproductive Health Services early enough in the primary school level to formally expose them to sexual health knowledge and eventually improve utilization