YOUTH FRIENDLY SERVICE UTILIZATION AND ASSOCIATED FACTORS AMONG YOUNG PREPARATORY SCHOOLS STUDENTS IN GAMBELLA TOWN, SOUTH WEST ETHIOPIA: A CROSS SECTIONAL STUDY

Background: Youth is a period of life in which an individual passes from significant physiological, psychological and social changes that expose them at high risk of reproductive health problems. Even though, there were several strategies approved to solve reproductive health problems of young people including international conference on population development, they still face with unsafe abortion, unintended pregnancy, sexually transmitted infections, acquired human immune deficiency syndrome, lack of provision of condoms and unmet need of family planning. Methods: A school-based cross-sectional study was conducted among 394 randomly selected preparatory school students in Gambella Town. Data were collected by selfadministered questionnaires. Data was entered with EpiData version 3.1 and analyzed using SPSS version 23. Bivariable and multivariable logistic regression were performed. The candidate variables with a p-value<0.25 in Bivariable analysis were moved to multivariable analysis to identify their significance with dependent variables, and those with a pvalue<0.05 were taken as independent factors affecting youth-friendly service utilization. Result: The overall utilization of youth friendly service was 31.2% (123) among preparatory school students in Gambella town. About 271 (69.1%) of sexually active students had used at least one reproductive health service in the past 12 months Bivariate and multivariate analyses identified significant associations with service use. Notably, being married increased utilization by about five times, having pocket money doubled the likelihood, and not having to pay for services more than doubled it. Having knowledge about YFRHS, convenient working hours, and sexual experience were also linked to higher utilization, with odds ratios of 2.51 and 3.38, respectively. Conclusion and recommendation: The study concludes that youth-friendly service utilization among preparatory school students in Gambela town is relatively low. This trend is influenced by factors such as marital status, having knowledge about YFRHS the availability of daily pocket money, payment for services, convenience of working hours, and engagement in sexual activity.