Views of professional nurses working at a primary health care facility on their role in distribution of condoms to young adolescents in secondary schools in a district in Cape Town

Abstract

The National Department of Education made provision in the new Youth and Adolescent policy for the distribution of condoms at schools. Professional nurses (PN) do not feel comfortable and are reluctant to distribute condoms to young adolescents. This is due to the fact that they face challenges with reaching out to schools, as the governing bodies refuses sexual reproductive health services (SRH) through distribution of condoms at schools. It was unclear how a policy on a district level could assist them to distribute condoms at secondary schools. The study investigated the views of the PN working in a Primary Health Care (PHC) facility on their role to distribute condoms amongst young adolescents at secondary schools. This led to the development of a health care policy on district level to support PN’s in a PHC facility in distributing condoms to young adolescents at secondary schools. An exploratory, descriptive, and contextual qualitative design was used, Data was collected through nine semi-structured individual interviews and who were purposively collected. Data was analysed through open coding. Trustworthiness was obtained through credibility of member checking throughout the research analysis process where data seem to be unclear. Ethical principles of, confidentiality, written informed consent, withdrawal, privacy, and beneficence was applied. Six themes transpired from the data analysis. The results indicated that participants agreed that they have a pivotal role in health education when distributing condoms. The participants verbalised that they were willing to distribute condoms at secondary schools, but experience resistance from stakeholders. The stakeholders, which is the parents, teachers, principals, and community members, where who should be informed to understand and gain knowledge the reasons for condom distribution to young adolescents. The internal environment is the school environment and the external environment the community environment, and both of their roles should be evaluated as they posed a possible limitation to access condoms for young adolescents. The conclusion was that a policy was needed to support nurses to distribute condoms at secondary schools. The policy should focus on the role of the PN to provide preventative care to young adolescents, which include provision of condoms to prevent unwanted pregnancies, STIs and human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) transmission. Support should be offered to the PN at a PHC facility to fulfil their duty to the diverse society.