Prevalence of Emergency Birth Control Pills Amongst Adolescent Following Unprotected Early Sex Among Senior Secondary School Students in Kano Metropolis

Abstract

Onset time varies between males and females as well as the same sex of same age group. In girls, the marker of puberty is menarche meaning the first menstruation but there is no such clear marker in boys. The mean age at menarche is 12-13 years in developed world, this is likely to be similar could be higher in developing countries. The male counterpart however shows signs of sexual maturation which becomes evident between 13-14 years of age. The start of puberty can vary by a mean age of four to five years between both girls and boys, according to United Nation. Hence this study aims to determine the prevalence of use of emergency birth control pills amongst adolescent following unprotected early sex among senior secondary school students in kano metropolis. 392 adolescent senior secondary school female students in kano metropolis were recruited for this study. Data were prospectively collected on a questionnaire. Continuous data such as age were expressed as mean, standard deviation, median and mode. Frequencies, percentages and ratios were used to summarize qualitative data such as sex, marital status and religion. Segment for knowledge, attitude and perception were also filled as appropriate. Analysis were done using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) for Windows Version 20 (IBM Corp. Released 2011. IBM SPSS. The findings reveal that a substantial proportion of adolescents (53.5%) reported using emergency birth control pills after engaging in sexual activity. This prevalence aligns with the documented trend of adolescents relying on emergency contraception when other forms of contraception fail or are not used consistently.