A comparative study of reproductive health care needs of adolescent girls’ in public and private schools in Ilorin, Nigeria

Introduction: Many of the adolescent girls lack the basic reproductive health needs that could help them to have proper knowledge, attitude and healthy life-styles to attain a state of well-being. The lack of these needs has been attributed to challenging reproductive health life. Such challenging reproductive health life include early marriage, teenage pregnancies, unsafe abortion, sexually transmitted infections (STIs) and other life threatening Sexual and Reproductive Health issues. This study aimed at comparing the reproductive health care needs of adolescent girls in public and private schools in Ilorin metropolis, Nigeria. Methodology: A analytical (cross-sectional) study using mixed methods was conducted. Ten schools were selected with a total sample size of 538 (Public schools 269 and Private schools 269). Multistage sampling was used to select the respondents. Data was collected through questionnaires and Key informant interviews with fifty participants. Data analysis involved descriptive statistics with Pearson's chi-square for comparing proportions, t-test to compare the means of the variables and thematic analysis for the qualitative data. Result: A significant difference was found in the RH needs of adolescent girls in public and private schools with p-value= 0.001. The private school students had better access to RHS needs (69.1%) compared to their public school students (41.6%). Conclusion: while awareness of RHS is relatively high among the students in both school types, disparities exist in access. Private school students have greater access to RHS such as menstrual hygiene products than their public school counterparts.