Background: 22% of Nigeria's population are adolescents between the ages of 10-19, with research suggesting 15 years as the age at sexual debut for girls. These youth populations often have multiple exploratory relationships, particularly those of a sexual nature with many unaware of the risks, including sexually transmitted infections (STIs) and unwanted pregnancy. Within ages 15-49, global adolescent birthrate is 42 births per 1000 women and 106 in Nigeria. Improvements in access to family planning (FP) for adolescents and young people, necessitates the implementation of adolescent and youth friendly health services (AYFHS) to remove service delivery barriers linked to judgment and stigmatization.
Methodology: Clinton Health Access Initiative (CHAI) in collaboration with Kaduna, Kano, Katsina and Rivers state ministries of health (SMOHs) piloted the operationalization of AYFHS across 130 flagship health facilities (HFs). Between 2018 and 2022, the program oriented 2,443 community Youth Champions (YCs) on Reproductive Health (RH) benefits and utilization of contraception to mitigate STIs and unwanted pregnancies. Capacity was built for 736 healthcare workers (HCWs) on comprehensive RH services for adolescents and young people with a focus on common risk taking behavior, counselling, service delivery and client referrals.
Results: Supported federal and state governments in approval and adoption of national guidelines for provision of AYFHS in primary and secondary HFs, including certification criteria. CHAI also developed Standard Operating Principles (SOP) based on learnings and best practices from the flagship AYFHS facilities. In total 14,183 (80% females and 20% males) received contraceptives, 4,872 (55% females and 45% males) drug abuse counselling, and 5,932 (54% females and 36% males) STI counselling and/or treatment.
Conclusion: Supporting improvements in HCW knowledge on appropriate provision of AYFHS and orientation of YCs on the need to access RH services is essential to achieving a sustained reduction of unintended pregnancies and unsafe abortions.
