Are young women in India prepared to deal with SRH issues? : A case study of Jharkhand, India

Background: Young women often face social, economic, logistical, policy and health system barriers to access to sexual and reproductive health services, including safe abortion care.
Method: An OR project is launched in Jharkhand to assess the strategy of using youth leaders to link young women to SRH issues including safe abortion services. Using quasi-experimental longitudinal design a baseline household survey is conducted in July-August 2012 and interviewed 1381 young women (15-24 years) to assess the knowledge, attitude, and skills on SRH issues and barriers and forces of influence that lead to any particular behavior, decision, or service utilization.
Results: Even with high levels of literacy (66%-91%) and mass media exposures (65%-80%), the composite knowledge score on SRH (2.4 of 6), contraception (2.4 of 8), and abortion (0.5 of 8) related issues were significantly low. Multivariate analyses revealed age, education, family composition, living standard, and exposure to mass media as the influencing attributes of knowledge level. Around 4% of married young women reported experiencing induced abortion; one-third of them had no role in taking decision. 92% of them had approached private and illegal providers. Findings of this study had major policy implication for guiding the youth focused intervention strategy.