Communication between Adolescents and their Parents on Sexual Risk-Taking Behaviours and Facilitating factors in Rwanda

BackgroundYounger generation engages in sexual activities that often result in early pregnancies, unsafe abortions, sexual abuse, and sexually transmitted infections. Parent-adolescent communication could be a sustainable solution to improved adolescent reproductive health.ObjectiveTo determine factors facilitating adolescent communication with the parents on sexual risk-taking behaviours.Methods: A cross-sectional study design was used with a sample of 199 adolescents. A self-administered questionnaire through a simple random sampling technique was employed, and participation was voluntary. Descriptive and inferential statistics were performed using the Statistical Package for Social Science (IBM-Version 21). ResultsThe adolescents who never spoke to their mothers on sexual risk activities were 20.1%. The factors that facilitated adolescent communication with their parents about sex risk behaviours were: age of adolescents (r = -0.166, p = 0.023), living arrangement of adolescents (r = 0.147, p = 0.045), Having home mate brothers and sisters (r = 0.142, p = 0.05) and living with grandparents (r = 0.220, p = 0.003). ConclusionParents’ time to interact with their adolescent children was insufficient. There are numerous factors that positively and negatively influence parent-adolescent communication on sexual risk behaviors. General communication was found to be an important facet and a strategy to conveying reproductive and sexual issues to adolescents by the parents Rwanda J Med Health Sci 2022;5(1):20-3

M-health tools utilization of tele-home healthcare services for diabetes management among youth in Kigali City

Background: Self-care of diabetes for youth requires a daily self-active participation, which is complex and demanding. Effective patient engagement through technology tools may bring about compliance to healthcare 24 hours/ 7 days which minimises the diabetes complications and clinicians overload.Objective: This study aimed to assess M-health tools utilization of tele-home healthcare services for diabetes management among youth in Kigali City.Method: This cross-sectional study was conducted among the Rwanda Diabetes Association members. The study populations were youth diabetic patients residing in Kigali city. With simple random sampling, self-administered questionnaire was used to collect data for 122 participants. The raw data was entered into the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS: 20) to perform descriptive and inferential statistics in data analysis.Results: The mobile telephone is highly used in healthcare by participants (≥80%) with its functions such as Short Message Services, and the voice call is more useful (≥87%). Furthermore, occupation and education level of diabetic youth do not have significance influence (p=0.825 and p=0.751) over the use of a mobile telephone in healthcare. Radios and televisions are mostly used in healthcare education (93.5%).Conclusions: Tele-home healthcare is practised in Rwanda but dominated by store and forward system. Mobile telephone, radio and television are mostly used whereas emails and social media are slowly used.Keywords: m-health, Tele-home, Healthcare service, and yout