Adolescent reproductive health and gender role attitudes in Oman

OBJECTIVE: The aim of the study was to investigate the attitudes of Omani adolescents towards the different gender roles and women empowerment with regard to taking household decisions, and to study how they influenced the adolescents' knowledge and attitudes towards some reproductive health issues in a national representative secondary schools-based sample of 1670 boys and 1675 girls.

METHODS: In 2001, through a self administrated questionnaire the adolescents answered 2 indices; adolescents Attitudes Toward Gender Roles (ATGR) and adolescents Attitudes Toward Women Empowerment (ATWE) in addition to answering questions on demographic data, environmental factors, and questions assessing their knowledge and attitudes towards reproductive health issues.

RESULTS: High scores of ATGR or ATWE were found to significantly predict sound adolescents' reproductive health knowledge or positive attitudes in almost all the logistic regression models.

CONCLUSION: The study highlighted the scope of interventions to be initiated for adolescents reproductive health. Changes in attitudes towards gender role have to accompany our endeavors to set up the stage for our future generation's reproductive health.