By Mercy Arthur
Tema, Sept. 06, GNA – Dr. Yaa Akyaa Boateng, a Family Physician Specialist at the International Maritime Hospital (IMaH) in Tema, has revealed that the existence of the adolescent health corners is to aid adolescents with healthy information to make good decisions.
She stated that when an adolescent visited the health corner, the service providers gave them the information to make an informed decision to become their own person during this stage of adulthood.
Dr. Boateng gave the advice during the weekly “Your Health! Our Collective Responsibility! A Tema Ghana News Agency initiative aimed at promoting health-related communication and providing a platform for health information dissemination to influence personal health choices through improved health literacy
The office developed the platform to investigate the components of four health communication approaches: informing, instructing, convincing, and promoting.
Speaking on the topic of “Adolescent and Youth Health,” Dr. Boateng added that imposing or restricting the adolescent child from certain information during counselling may result in them not visiting the health facility for more guidelines because they feel they are not being regarded as adults.
“The visiting of the adolescent health corner helps them to identify what is good to do and some behaviours that may risk them”, she noted.
Dr. Boateng, however, stated that during the adolescent stage, one becomes sexually active, and being engaged in any sexual intercourse without a condom or being unfaithful to your partner may lead to sexually transmitted diseases.
Thus, the counselling sessions at the adolescent health corner help equip the adolescents’ with information to aid them in making positive decisions, hopefully for themselves.
Also, lack of information makes it difficult to make decisions as an adolescent, and they may end up deciding on anything because the information they have is limited, she noted.
The enforcement of parents on the adolescent child may lead to rebellion; hence, counselling aids them in making good and healthy decisions.
She said during the adolescent stage, there were some conditions they faced, such as alcoholism, smoking, and mental health, among others, hence the need for society to pay more attention to adolescents and their health.
She urged that parents should be aware of what their children were taught at school to open communication strategies with them at home.
“The adolescent child should be equipped with skills to help them make healthy choices by giving them responsibilities or chores at home to perform and avoiding spending too much screen time on their phones at home.
“It’s a good practice to take your adolescent child to the health facilities for preventive health care screening at least once a year for checkups for their mental, social, and physical health care,” she emphasised.
GNA