Dataset Information

Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Adolescents' Sexual and Reproductive Health in Low- and Middle-Income Countries.

ABSTRACT: Adolescents living in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) are struggling with accessing sexual and reproductive health (SRH) services, and COVID-19 has escalated the problem. The purpose of this review was to identify and assess the existing literature on the impact of the pandemic on SRH needs and access to services by adolescents in LMICs. A scoping review was conducted to collate findings on the topic. Searches were performed on eight databases. Data were extracted and categorized into various themes. After removing duplicates and performing a full-text reading of all articles, nine articles were included in our review. Our findings generated several themes related to adolescents' sexual and reproductive health during the COVID-19 pandemic. These include (1) limited access to sexual and reproductive health services, (2) school closure and increased rate of early marriages, (3) sexual or intimate partner violence during COVID-19, (4) disruption in maternity care, (5) adolescents' involvement in risky or exploitative work, (6) intervention to improve sexual and reproductive health services during COVID-19, and (7) policy development related to adolescent sexual and reproductive health. Several recommendations were made on policies-for instance, the use of telemedicine and community-based programs as a way to deliver SRH services to adolescents during and after a pandemic.

SUBMITTER: Meherali S

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8701118 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Adolescents' Sexual and Reproductive Health in Low- and Middle-Income Countries.

Meherali Salima S Adewale Bisi B Ali Sonam S Kennedy Megan M Salami Bukola Oladunni BO Richter Solina S Okeke-Ihejirika Phil E PE Ali Parveen P da Silva Kênia Lara KL Adjorlolo Samuel S Aziato Lydia L Kwankye Stephen Owusu SO Lassi Zohra Z

International journal of environmental research and public health 20211215 24

Adolescents living in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) are struggling with accessing sexual and reproductive health (SRH) services, and COVID-19 has escalated the problem. The purpose of this review was to identify and assess the existing literature on the impact of the pandemic on SRH needs and access to services by adolescents in LMICs. A scoping review was conducted to collate findings on the topic. Searches were performed on eight databases. Data were extracted and categorized into v ...[more]

PMID: 34948829

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Project description:IntroductionThe Sustainable Development Goals, which are grounded in human rights, involve empowering women and girls and ensuring that everyone can access sexual and reproductive health and rights (Goal 5). This is the first systematic review reporting interventions involving rights-based approaches for sexual and reproductive health issues including gender-based violence, maternity, HIV and sexually transmitted infections in low and middle-income countries.AimsTo describe the evidence on rights-based approaches to sexual and reproductive health in low and middle-income countries.MethodsEMBASE, MEDLINE and Web of Science were searched until 9/1/2020. Inclusion criteria were: Study design: any interventional study.Population: females aged over 15 living in low and middle-income countries.Intervention: a "rights-based approach" (defined by the author) and/or interventions that the author explicitly stated related to "rights".Comparator: clusters in which no intervention or fewer components of an intervention were in place, or individuals not exposed to interventions, or exposed to fewer intervention components.Outcome: Sexual and reproductive health related outcomes. A narrative synthesis of included studies was undertaken, and outcomes mapped to identify evidence gaps. The systematic review protocol was registered on PROSPERO (CRD42019158950).ResultsDatabase searching identified 17,212 records, and 13,404 studies remained after de-duplication. Twenty-four studies were included after title and abstract, full-text and reference-list screening by two authors independently. Rights-based interventions were effective for some included outcomes, but evidence was of poor quality. Testing uptake for HIV and/or other sexually transmitted infections, condom use, and awareness of rights improved with intervention, but all relevant studies were at high, critical or serious risk of bias. No study included gender-based violence outcomes.ConclusionConsiderable risk of bias in all studies means results must be interpreted with caution. High-quality controlled studies are needed urgently in this area.

Project description:BackgroundCOVID-19 has the potential to cause substantial disruptions to health services, due to cases overburdening the health system or response measures limiting usual programmatic activities. We aimed to quantify the extent to which disruptions to services for HIV, tuberculosis, and malaria in low-income and middle-income countries with high burdens of these diseases could lead to additional loss of life over the next 5 years.MethodsAssuming a basic reproduction number of 3·0, we constructed four scenarios for possible responses to the COVID-19 pandemic: no action, mitigation for 6 months, suppression for 2 months, or suppression for 1 year. We used established transmission models of HIV, tuberculosis, and malaria to estimate the additional impact on health that could be caused in selected settings, either due to COVID-19 interventions limiting activities, or due to the high demand on the health system due to the COVID-19 pandemic.FindingsIn high-burden settings, deaths due to HIV, tuberculosis, and malaria over 5 years could increase by up to 10%, 20%, and 36%, respectively, compared with if there was no COVID-19 pandemic. The greatest impact on HIV was estimated to be from interruption to antiretroviral therapy, which could occur during a period of high health system demand. For tuberculosis, the greatest impact would be from reductions in timely diagnosis and treatment of new cases, which could result from any prolonged period of COVID-19 suppression interventions. The greatest impact on malaria burden could be as a result of interruption of planned net campaigns. These disruptions could lead to a loss of life-years over 5 years that is of the same order of magnitude as the direct impact from COVID-19 in places with a high burden of malaria and large HIV and tuberculosis epidemics.InterpretationMaintaining the most critical prevention activities and health-care services for HIV, tuberculosis, and malaria could substantially reduce the overall impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.FundingBill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Wellcome Trust, UK Department for International Development, and Medical Research Council.

Project description:INTRODUCTION:Health education programmes (HEPs) have been associated with a number of benefits. These include providing individuals with information on matters related to their mental, social, physical as well as emotional health. HEPs also play a major role in preventing diseases and reducing the level of engagement of individuals in risky behaviours. While this is the case, there are barriers to the effective implementation of HEPs, especially in low-income and middle-income countries (LMICs) where resources are scarce. Available evidence has revealed socioeconomic challenges ranging from literacy issues, discomfort about issues of sexuality, and cultural barriers to financial constraints as key barriers to the implementation of sexual and reproductive health HEPs in LMICs. We will focus on HEPs related to sexual and reproductive health; all age groups will be considered with no restrictions on geographical setting nor model of HEP delivery. This review will map literature on the barriers to the effective implementation of HEPs in LMICs to guide future implementation research. METHODS:Arksey and O'Malley's 2005 scoping methodological framework will act as the guide for this review. We will search the following electronic databases: EBSCOhost (Academic search complete, PsycINFO, Health Sources, CINAHL and MEDLINE with full text), Google Scholar, PubMed, SCOPUS, Science Direct and Web of Science. Grey literature from Mount Kenya University theses and dissertations, governments' as well as international organisations' reports, such as WHO, and reference lists of included studies will be searched for eligible studies. We will limit our search to publications from 1 January 2000 to 30 September 2019. Using thematic content analysis, we will employ NVivo V.12 to extract the relevant outcomes from the included articles. We will conduct a quality appraisal of the included articles using the mixed methods appraisal tool (MMAT) version 2018. ETHICS AND DISSEMINATION:No ethical approval is needed for the study as it will not include animal nor human participants. The results of the proposed scoping review will be disseminated electronically, in print and through conference presentation as well as at key stakeholder meetings.

Project description:BackgroundAdolescent girls aged 15-19 bear a disproportionate burden of negative sexual and reproductive health outcomes in low- and middle-income countries. Research from several high-income countries suggests that early age at menarche is an important determinant of sexual and reproductive health. We conducted this systematic review to better understand whether and how early menarche is associated with various negative sexual and reproductive health outcomes in low- and middle-income countries and the implications of such associations.MethodsWe systematically searched eight health and social sciences databases for peer-reviewed literature on menarche and sexual and reproductive health in low- and middle-income countries. Two reviewers independently assessed all studies for inclusion, overall quality and risk of bias, and performed data extraction on all included studies.ResultsTwenty-four articles met all inclusion criteria-nine of moderate quality and fifteen with several methodological weaknesses. Our review of the minimal existing literature showed that early menarche is associated with early sexual initiation, early pregnancy and some sexually transmitted infections in low- and middle-income countries, similar to what has been observed in high-income countries. Early menarche is also associated with early marriage-an association that may have particularly important implications for countries with high child marriage rates.ConclusionsEarly age at menarche may be an important factor affecting the sexual and reproductive health of adolescent girls and young women in low- and middle-income countries. More research is needed to confirm the existence of the identified associations across different settings and to better understand the process through which early menarche and other markers of early pubertal development may contribute to the increased vulnerability of girls to negative sexual and reproductive health outcomes in low- and middle-income countries. Given the association of early menarche with early marriage, ongoing efforts to reduce child marriage may benefit from targeting efforts to early maturing girls.

Project description:BackgroundCOVID-19 has impacted the capacity of healthcare systems worldwide, particularly in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), which are already under strain due to population growth and insufficient resources. Since the COVID-19 pandemic's emergence, there has been an urgent need for a rapid and adequate reaction to the pandemic's disruption of healthcare systems. To this end, telemedicine has been shown in prior research to be a feasible approach. The overarching objective of this scoping review was to determine the extent and acceptance of telemedicine in healthcare in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) during the COVID-19 pandemic.MethodsThis scoping review followed PRISMA guidelines and Arksey and O'Malley's five-stage framework to identify available evidence. We systematically searched four academic databases for peer-reviewed literature published between January 2020 and April 2021: Medline, PubMed, Web of Science, and Scopus, as well as Google Scholar as a source for grey literature.ResultsThe search identified 54 articles with 45,843 participants, including 6,966 healthcare professionals and 36,877 healthcare users. We identified a range of reasons for introducing telemedicine in LMICs during COVID-19, most notably to maintain non-emergency healthcare, enhance access to healthcare providers, and reduce the risk of infection among health users and providers. Overall, healthcare providers and users have shown a high level of acceptance for telemedicine services. During the COVID-19 pandemic, telemedicine provided access to healthcare in the majority of included articles. Nonetheless, some challenges to accepting telemedicine as a method of healthcare delivery have been reported, including technological, regulatory, and economical challenges.ConclusionTelemedicine was found to improve access to high-quality healthcare and decrease infection risk in LMICs during COVID-19. In general, infrastructure and regulatory barriers found to be the most significant barriers to wider telemedicine use, and should be considered when implementing telemedicine more broadly. There appears to be a need to prioritize patient data safety, as many healthcare practitioners utilized commercial apps and services as telemedicine systems. Additionally, it appears as though there is a need to increase capacity, skill, and transparency, as well as to educate patients about telemedicine.

Dataset Information

Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Adolescents' Sexual and Reproductive Health in Low- and Middle-Income Countries.

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Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Adolescents' Sexual and Reproductive Health in Low- and Middle-Income Countries.

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