Prevalence, Knowledge, Attitude and Health Seeking Behaviour on Vaginal Candidiasis among Adolescent Girls in Senior High Schools in the Cape Coast Metropolis

Abstract

Vaginal discharge affects every female at a point in her lifetime and among other conditions, could be Candida infection, with varying levels of severity and complications, especially among adolescents. The study’s objectives were to determine the prevalence of vaginal candidiasis in teenage girls attending senior high schools in Cape Coast Metropolis and to evaluate the students’ knowledge of the condition, their attitudes towards it, and their behaviour in terms of seeking out health information about it. For this investigation, a descriptive cross-sectional survey design was chosen. The study involved 700 female students from two all-female senior high schools which were purposively sampled and two mixed-sex senior high schools that was randomly selected using the RANDBETWEEN function in MS Excel. Questionnaire was used to collect the data and analysed using descriptive statistics frequencies, percentages and regression in SPSS version 21. The study found prevalence level to be quite high among the adolescent in senior high schools in Cape Coast Metropolis. Ninety-three percent of the respondents knew that vulvovaginal candidiasis could affect the reproduction system but 77% had no knowledge on the causative organism and the appropriate medications used in treating the condition. The study found that most respondents attached a lot of importance to personal hygiene stating that lack of personal hygiene predisposes them greatly to acquiring vulvovaginal candidiasis. It is recommended that there is the need for public health care providers to offer skills in efficient communication, health education and awareness creation on common health conditions like vulvovaginal candidiasis.