“What We Think About Them?”— A Qualitative Study Addressing Perception of Parents and Teachers About Adolescent Upbringing in Coastal Karnataka

Background: The role of parents is very pivotal in a child’s overall development. Discussing about adolescent changes especially reproductive health (RH) is still considered a taboo in our society. Even imparting sex education at schools has remained a debatable topic in India. The aim of our study was to study the perception of parents and teachers about adolescent upbringing with a special focus on RH, services and schemes provided for RH of adolescents. Methods: A qualitative study was conducted in rural–urban settings in two districts of Coastal Karnataka. By the technique of stratified purposeful sampling, 50 parents and 40 teachers in the age group of 30–60 years participated in 10 focus group discussions (FGD). All participants were related to adolescents. For data collection, a pre-tested FGD guide was used. All tape-recorded data was fully transcribed and thematic analysis was done. Result: Bad peer company, excessive restrictions, bad habits, misconceptions about sex, mobiles, internet-negative influence, and sexual harassment were few factors that parents were worried about. When compared to males, they believed that female adolescents suffer both physically and mentally. Male adolescents do not have any “reproductive health problems”. All parents were unaware of any health care services provided for adolescents by the government.