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Review
. 2023 Feb 17:5:1007005.
doi: 10.3389/frph.2023.1007005. eCollection 2023.

Hope, agency, and adolescents' sexual and reproductive health: A mini review

Candice Groenewald  1   2 , Nazeema Isaacs  3 , Phiwokazi Qoza  1
Affiliations
Review

Hope, agency, and adolescents' sexual and reproductive health: A mini review

Candice Groenewald et al. Front Reprod Health. .

Abstract

Availability of and access to services that promote sexual and reproductive health (SRH) amongst adolescent girls have become a global priority. Yet, while researchers have explored factors that influence the uptake of SRH services in low-and-middle income countries, the roles that "agency" and "hope" play in adolescent SRH is less understood. To study this, this mini review systematically reviewed the literature across three databases, EBSCO-host web, Pubmed and South Africa (SA) epublications, for the period of January 2012 to January 2022. Findings showed that a paucity of studies identified the link between agency, hope and adolescent SRH respectively. Our review included 12 articles and found no studies that focused on hope and its role in adolescent SRH or seeking SRH services. However, the literature revealed the complexities of adolescent SRH agency and autonomy where female adolescents had limited autonomy to make SRH decisions. Limited access to adolescent friendly SRH services was also found to restrict girls' agency to prevent unintended pregnancies or to take up SRH support. Given the paucity of research, empirical studies are needed to further understand the extent to which hope, agency and other subjective factors implicate adolescent SRH in the African context.

Keywords: adolescent & youth; agency; autonomy; self esteem; self-efficacay; sexual and reproductive health.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Prisma diagram to screen articles. Page MJ, McKenzie JE, Bossuyt PM, Boutron I, Hoffmann TC, Mulrow CD, et al. The PRISMA 2020 statement: an updated guideline for reporting systematic reviews. BMJ 2021;372:n71. doi: 10.1136/bmj.n71.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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