Background/objectives:
According to Nigeria Demographic and Health Survey (NDHS 2018), Nigeria has 48% unmet need for family planning among sexually active unmarried women. Variety of issues must be addressed to bridge this gap. Values Clarification and Attitudinal Change (VCAT) is a veritable tool to achieve this Adolescents right to sexual reproductive health services. Marie Stopes International Organization Nigeria (MSION) mobile outreach team in Akwa Ibom State target the hard-to-reach communities where many youths fail to seek reproductive health services. This study is thus sets to establish that unbiased providers and enabling environment can result in greater number of adolescents accessing sexual reproductive health services.
Methodology:
Pre-service mobilization using youth focused community structures like satisfied adolescents, youth groups in churches, school-based activities, peer-peer approach. Youths are engaged as town announcers to help mobilize their peers to site. The outreach Clinical Service Providers are youth friendly and possess the skills to retain the adolescents through motivation, health education and proper counseling. In-depth interviews conducted during 2022 World Contraceptive Day celebration to elicit information about the effects of the services on the adolescent users.
Results:
From January to August 2022, Akwa Ibom State outreach team has served a total of 12,905 clients. 4336 from the total clients served are adolescents representing 33.6%. This is 4% greater than the organization High Impact Client benchmark of 29%. The resultant effects of the service provision have enabled some adolescents return to school as well as reduce unsafe abortion.
Conclusions:
To increase Family Planning uptake among youth and adolescents in Nigeria, a safe supportive environment should be provided to improve adolescent health outcomes. Providers should understand cross-cultural issues of adolescent development and health need specific to youth thereby building unbiased communication and counselling skills to esterblish a better sense of trust between client and the service provider.
