The study sought to assess adolescents‘ awareness of youth friendly reproductive
health services in Public Health facilities. To identify various reproductive health
services available in the centre, to determine youths awareness of reproductive health
services, to assess youths knowledge to distinguish between friendly and unfriendly
reproductive behavior, to explore strategies to improve access to and provision of
youth friendly reproductive services. The study adopted the Social Cognitive Theory
and Adolescent Sexual and Reproductive Health. The study was affected by a
number of limitations including, financial, language barrier and time constraints;
however the researcher tried to minimize costs by taking a reasonable number of
respondents so as to enable her to go with the allocated budget. The study was
conducted at three health facilities namely, Infectious Disease centre (IDC),
Buguruni-Plan health centre and Mnazi mmoja health centre. A total of 90
adolescents participated in the study. The researcher used questionnaires, interviews
and documentary review techniques to collect data. The findings show that, the
YFRHS offered in the health care facilities in Dar es Salaam includes, care and
treatment, counseling, information and education and HIV testing. Currently, most
YFRHS for adolescent are offered only from the clinics or government hospitals.
Findings further shows that, a grand majority of respondents were aware of the
available youth friendly services and reproductive health services. The researcher
recommends that, in order to raise the level of awareness and access to health
services, government and stakeholders should, introducing mobile service, set up
smaller branches or satellite clinics closer to where young people congregate, have
clinics open at times when young people can conveniently attend.