Perceived barriers to accessing sexual and reproductive health services among educated young women in Egypt

Abstract

Background: Youth have higher risk of sexual and reproductive health (SRH) problems, and consequently have a higherneed for SRH counselling. In Egypt, reproductive health (RH) awareness is generally poor especially among young womenattending high institutions that requires further attentions and research to explore the different barriers to access the RHservices.Aim: The aim of this study is to investigate the barriers to access SRH services among young educated Egyptians.Materials and Methods: A cross-sectional, community-based survey was conducted in Minia Governorate, Egyptthrough a self-funded research project during the period from January 2019 till September 2019. The invited samplewere 750 female university students. Approval by ethical committee of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology,Minia University Hospital was obtained. Descriptive and a cross-tabular descriptive statistical analysis of frequenciesand percentages were performed. Comparing means with a significance level of 0.05 was performed to investigate theassociation between the different variables.Results: A total of 48.1% of participants reported an unmet need of sexual and reproductive health counselling. Tendifferent barriers were described by the participants. The first four barriers in the order of importance were health serviceprovider’s attitudes (88.5%), misinformation in the communities (86.5%), cultural norms (86.5%) and health systembarriers (73.1%) while the logistics and the distance was rated on the bottom.Conclusion: It is imperative to ensure efficient and adequate SRH counselling among the vulnerable groups. Improvingthe access to SRH can be achieved by correction of the community misconceptions with adequate training of the healthservice providers.