Mohammed, Aliu, Donkoh, Irene Esi, Aboagye, Richard Gyan, Ahinkorah, Bright Opoku, and Seidu, Abdul-Aziz (2024) Access to quality contraceptive counselling among adolescent girls and young women in sub-Saharan Africa. Contraception and Reproductive Medicine, 9. 16.

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Abstract

Background: Improving women’s access to and use of modern contraceptives is a key global strategy for improving the sexual and reproductive health of women. However, the use of modern contraceptives among adolescent girls and young women in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) remains relatively low, despite the numerous interventions to increase patronage. This study examined adolescent girls and young women’s receipt of quality contraceptive counselling and its associated factors in SSA.

Methods: Data for the study were extracted from the recent Demographic and Health Surveys of 20 countries in SSA, spanning from 2015 to 2021. A sample of 19,398 adolescent girls and young women aged 15 to 24 years was included in the study. We presented the proportion of adolescent girls and young women who received quality contraceptive counselling using a spatial map. Multilevel binary logistic regression analysis was carried out to examine the factors associated with the receipt of quality contraceptive counselling.

Results: Overall, 33.2% of adolescent girls and young women had access to quality contraceptive counselling, ranging from 13.0% in Cameroon to 67.0% in Sierra Leone. The odds of receiving quality contraceptive counselling was higher among adolescent girls and young women aged 20–24 (AOR = 1.48, CI: 1.32–1.67), those with primary (AOR = 1.32, CI: 1.11–1.57) and secondary or higher education (AOR = 1.31, CI: 1.09–1.58), and those married (AOR = 1.32, CI: 1.15–1.52), cohabiting (AOR = 1.47, CI: 1.23–1.76), and previously married (AOR = 1.48, CI: 1.20–1.83) compared to their counterparts in the reference groups. Adolescent girls and young women who were currently working (AOR = 1.22, CI: 1.09–1.37), those who heard of family planning from radio in the last few months (AOR = 1.34, CI:1.21–1.50), those who visited the health facility in the last 12 months (AOR = 1.69, CI: 1.52–1.88), and those residing in the Southern (AOR = 5.01, CI: 3.86–6.51), Eastern (AOR = 2.54, CI: 1.96–3.30), and Western (AOR = 4.09, CI: 3.19–5.25) SSA were more likely to receive quality contraceptive counselling compared to their counterparts in the reference groups. Conversely, adolescent girls and young women who used the internet, those who had problem getting permission to seek medical help, those facing problem in seeking medical help for not wanting to go alone, those from the middle and richest wealth indices, and those from the rural areas were less likely to receive quality contraceptive counselling compared to their counterparts in the reference groups.

Conclusion: Receipt of quality contraceptive counselling among adolescent girls and young women was low. Considering the importance of quality contraceptive counselling on the uptake and continuation of contraception, policymakers need to institute measures that improve adolescent girls and young women’s access to quality contraceptive counselling in SSA, especially in countries like Cameroon, Angola, Madagascar, Mauritania, and Guinea, taking into consideration the factors identified in the study. Increasing adolescent girls and young women’s access to quality contraceptive counselling could greatly minimize the risk of unintended pregnancies and its associated maternal and child health burden in SSA and subsequently contribute to the attainment of the Sustainable Development Goal 3, target 3.7.

Item ID:	85194
Item Type:	Article (Research - C1)
ISSN:	2055-7426
Copyright Information:	© The Author(s) 2024. Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data.
Date Deposited:	22 Apr 2025 23:04
FoR Codes:	42 HEALTH SCIENCES > 4206 Public health > 420606 Social determinants of health @ 100%
SEO Codes:	20 HEALTH > 2004 Public health (excl. specific population health) > 200499 Public health (excl. specific population health) not elsewhere classified @ 100%
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