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Application of community dialogue approach to prevent adolescent pregnancy, early marriage and school dropout in Zambia: a case study

BACKGROUND: Adolescent pregnancy carries both health and economic risks for the pregnant girl and resulting baby, and it is common in Zambia. Providing alternative methods of preventing early pregnancy than abstinence is regarded as culturally and religiously unacceptable in most parts of the countr...

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Autores principales: Zulu, Ireen Zamanga, Zulu, Joseph Mumba, Svanemyr, Joar, Michelo, Charles, Mutale, Wilbroad, Sandøy, Ingvild Fossgard
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8805275/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35101082
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12978-022-01335-8
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author Zulu, Ireen Zamanga
Zulu, Joseph Mumba
Svanemyr, Joar
Michelo, Charles
Mutale, Wilbroad
Sandøy, Ingvild Fossgard
author_facet Zulu, Ireen Zamanga
Zulu, Joseph Mumba
Svanemyr, Joar
Michelo, Charles
Mutale, Wilbroad
Sandøy, Ingvild Fossgard
author_sort Zulu, Ireen Zamanga
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Adolescent pregnancy carries both health and economic risks for the pregnant girl and resulting baby, and it is common in Zambia. Providing alternative methods of preventing early pregnancy than abstinence is regarded as culturally and religiously unacceptable in most parts of the country. The community dialogue approach is being tested to address norms and beliefs around early pregnancy, marriage and school dropout, and is based on Paulo Freire’s transformative communication approach. The objective of this paper was to understand parents’ perspectives on the application of the community dialogue approach in addressing adolescents’ early pregnancy and school dropout in a cluster randomized controlled trial in rural Zambia. METHODS/DESIGN: This was a case study design. We nested the study in the community dialogue intervention arm of the Research Initiative to Support the Empowerment of Girls trial in Zambia. Dialogue meetings were held and economic support was provided for a period of 27 months from September 2016 until November 2018. We held focus group discussions in November 2018 with guardians/parents in six schools in Chibombo District of Central Province. All the discussions were audio recorded and transcribed verbatim. Thematic analysis was used to analyze the data. RESULTS: The guardians/parents perceived the community dialogue to be a relevant approach for addressing social and cultural norms regarding early pregnancy, marriage and school dropout. It was embraced for its value in initiating individual and collective change. The facilitators’ interactive approach and dialogue in the community meetings coupled with the use of films and role plays with the parents, lead to active participation and open discussions about sexual and reproductive health (SRH) topics during the community dialogue meetings. Group interactions and sharing of experiences helped parents clarify their SRH values and subsequently made them feel able to communicate about SRH issues with their children. However, cultural and religious beliefs among the parents regarding some topics, like the use of condoms and contraceptives, complicated the delivery of reproductive health messages from the parents to their children. CONCLUSION: The study indicated that the community dialogue was appreciated by the parents and helped in addressing cultural barriers to discussing SRH issues between generations.
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spelling pubmed-88052752022-02-03 Application of community dialogue approach to prevent adolescent pregnancy, early marriage and school dropout in Zambia: a case study Zulu, Ireen Zamanga Zulu, Joseph Mumba Svanemyr, Joar Michelo, Charles Mutale, Wilbroad Sandøy, Ingvild Fossgard Reprod Health Research BACKGROUND: Adolescent pregnancy carries both health and economic risks for the pregnant girl and resulting baby, and it is common in Zambia. Providing alternative methods of preventing early pregnancy than abstinence is regarded as culturally and religiously unacceptable in most parts of the country. The community dialogue approach is being tested to address norms and beliefs around early pregnancy, marriage and school dropout, and is based on Paulo Freire’s transformative communication approach. The objective of this paper was to understand parents’ perspectives on the application of the community dialogue approach in addressing adolescents’ early pregnancy and school dropout in a cluster randomized controlled trial in rural Zambia. METHODS/DESIGN: This was a case study design. We nested the study in the community dialogue intervention arm of the Research Initiative to Support the Empowerment of Girls trial in Zambia. Dialogue meetings were held and economic support was provided for a period of 27 months from September 2016 until November 2018. We held focus group discussions in November 2018 with guardians/parents in six schools in Chibombo District of Central Province. All the discussions were audio recorded and transcribed verbatim. Thematic analysis was used to analyze the data. RESULTS: The guardians/parents perceived the community dialogue to be a relevant approach for addressing social and cultural norms regarding early pregnancy, marriage and school dropout. It was embraced for its value in initiating individual and collective change. The facilitators’ interactive approach and dialogue in the community meetings coupled with the use of films and role plays with the parents, lead to active participation and open discussions about sexual and reproductive health (SRH) topics during the community dialogue meetings. Group interactions and sharing of experiences helped parents clarify their SRH values and subsequently made them feel able to communicate about SRH issues with their children. However, cultural and religious beliefs among the parents regarding some topics, like the use of condoms and contraceptives, complicated the delivery of reproductive health messages from the parents to their children. CONCLUSION: The study indicated that the community dialogue was appreciated by the parents and helped in addressing cultural barriers to discussing SRH issues between generations. BioMed Central 2022-01-31 /pmc/articles/PMC8805275/ /pubmed/35101082 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12978-022-01335-8 Text en © The Author(s) 2022 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open AccessThis article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) . The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) ) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data.
spellingShingle Research
Zulu, Ireen Zamanga
Zulu, Joseph Mumba
Svanemyr, Joar
Michelo, Charles
Mutale, Wilbroad
Sandøy, Ingvild Fossgard
Application of community dialogue approach to prevent adolescent pregnancy, early marriage and school dropout in Zambia: a case study
title Application of community dialogue approach to prevent adolescent pregnancy, early marriage and school dropout in Zambia: a case study
title_full Application of community dialogue approach to prevent adolescent pregnancy, early marriage and school dropout in Zambia: a case study
title_fullStr Application of community dialogue approach to prevent adolescent pregnancy, early marriage and school dropout in Zambia: a case study
title_full_unstemmed Application of community dialogue approach to prevent adolescent pregnancy, early marriage and school dropout in Zambia: a case study
title_short Application of community dialogue approach to prevent adolescent pregnancy, early marriage and school dropout in Zambia: a case study
title_sort application of community dialogue approach to prevent adolescent pregnancy, early marriage and school dropout in zambia: a case study
topic Research
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8805275/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35101082
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12978-022-01335-8
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