Young people’s experiences in accessing sexual and reproductive health services in sub-Saharan Africa from 1994 to 2019 - A content analysis

Abstract

Increasing resources have been targeted at addressing the sexual and reproductive health (SRH) needs of the young people since the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) in 1994. Yet after two decades, the adoption of SRH services by the young people, a critical segment of the population, is very low, particularly among those in sub-Saharan Africa. This review focuses on the needs and experiences of the young people around SRH services with an aim of finding out possible reasons for the low adoption. A content analysis was used for both quantitative and qualitative studies on barriers to SRH services access and utilization among the young people in sub-Saharan Africa. This analysis identified three major categories of service-accessibility, utilization and quality. Most of the barriers including worries over abusive and discouraging remarks by health service providers; feeling of embarrassment, shame and fear; inadequate or no information on SRH service as well as lack of confidentiality and privacy could all be linked to the negative attitude of health services providers. Nonetheless, misconceptions about SRH services most especially the notion of contraceptives causing infertility when young women eventually get married was also prominent. The review has shown that most of the barriers to SRH services by the young people could be linked to the negative attitude of health service providers as well as misconceptions on SRH services from the young people. There is therefore, the need to intensify training of providers on youth friendly SRH services as well as intensify education of the young people on misconceptions about SRH services to improve adoption.