Health statistics on adolescents in Namibia indaicate high incidences of teenage unwanted pregnancies,
unsafe abortions, baby dumping, maternal ill health, early marriages and STIs including HIV. These are
indicators of underutilisation of adolescent friendly health services (AFHS) by adolescents as education
on these problems are covered in it. Although Government has made some strides to esure
implementation starts, there is a recognisable lack of its adoption by health workers. The aim of this study
was to establish the reasons for the slow adoption of AFHS practices by health workers at Katutura
Health Centre. A quantitative non-experimental cross-sectional descriprive research approach was used in
this study. Evidence using both primary data collected in the field through self-administered semistructured
questionnaires (with both open and closed questions) and secondary data collected in the
literature review was employed . A census of the entire population of health workers was prefered over
sampling. A total of 56 health workers accepted to participate in the study and the questionnaire, 46 of
which returned it within a stipulated three weeks data collection period. Descriptive statistics was utilised
together with frequencies, mean and basic collection. Eighty two percent of the sample participated in the
study of which 67% respondents were female and 33% were male. The majority of the respondents
(78.3%) had tertiary education. The results indicated: AFHS were not known to the majority of health
workers; there is slow adoption of AFHS; and the programme introduction could have been done better.
Factors significantly associated with adoption of AFHS are knowledge of such services, sex, level of
education, job position, work experience and effective implementation of the programme. A probability
value of p<0.05 was adopted. The programme is well appreciated despite concerns of lack of training and
proper implementation. Key recommendations were on staff recruitment, retention and training of health
workers; creation of space for implementing AFHS and marketing the programme. The system is in place,
what is left is to tighten some loose ends and programme is up and running.