COMMUNITY PARTICIPATION IN TEENAGE PREGNANCY PREVENTION PROGRAMMES: A SYSTEMATIC REVIEW

Abstract

The review was aimed at carrying out a systematic review of intervention programmes that have been designed and implemented for the prevention of teenage pregnancy at either community, national or international levels. The review procedure was guided by the protocol described by the Centre for Review Dissemination. It was initiated by conducting a literature search for relevant papers that focussed on teenage pregnancy prevention. After the elimination of random and unrelated results, selected abstracts were downloaded and initially screened for inclusion or exclusion criteria in the study. From the preliminary screening based on the abstract, a total of 35 papers were provisionally selected. After further screening, a total of 20 articles and reports that meet the inclusion criteria were selected and analysed further. For each of the qualifying studies, information that relates to the demographics of the teenage participants, description of the programme, and the level of success of the intervention were extracted. The major stakeholders of the 20 published national and international intervention programmes were governments, NGOs, academics/educators, community, health workers, youth workers and parents. In all the studies, the etiology for the intervention were poverty, poor sex and relationship education, poor sexual health services, substance abuse, crime, poor family relations, gender inequities and school dropout. With the exception of two of the reports, all the interventions were considered successful. All interventions revealed the prevention level to be secondary while 13 of the intervention programmes used the top-bottom approach. Due to the negative, long-term consequences of teenage pregnancy and childbirths, the prevention of unplanned teenage pregnancy and childbirths is a vital contribution to the overall aim of enhancing teenagers’ reproductive health and fulfilment of potentials.