Early Marriages Among Adolesencent Girls in Afyonkarahisar, Turkey

Aim: Early marriages have considerable adverse effects on adolescents and children health. To determine the factors associated with early marriages, this study was conducted in a forensic sample of Afyonkarahisar province.
Method: Between 2005-2006, Adolesencent women who were admitted to the court subsequently referred to the psychiatric outpatient clinics of the univercity. The authors who are psychiatrist individually interviewed all subjects by using a sociodemographic questionnaire form which was applied to 61 women aged between 15-17 years.
Result: Most of adolescents in our sample were from rural area and about 65.5 % of participants did not view early marriage as a problem. Of all cases the rate of consanguineous marriage was 23.0 %. More than half of participants reported that their knowledge of sexuality were none or little, and the most common sources of information on sexuality were relatives and friends.
Conclusion: It was detected that most adolescents in our sample were from a low socio-economic class, and after finishing the primary school, they wait for a marriage. Furthermore, they receive very little sex education from their parents and a modern institutional education programme in their school is needed.