TITLE:
Impact of Youth Clubs on Contraception and Sexual Practices in Young People and Adolescents: A Systematic Review in Africa
AUTHORS:
Yves Roland S. Bokossa, N’Pkingou Théodore Nadakou, Nicolas Gafan, Evelyne Soclo, Evariste Agbomakounzo, Daouda Gbadamassi, Thierry Armel Adoukonou
KEYWORDS:
Impact, Youth Work Centre, Contraception, Sexual Practices
JOURNAL NAME:
Advances in Sexual Medicine,
Vol.15 No.2,
April
29,
2025
ABSTRACT: Youth and adolescence are times in life when everyone needs more information and services in the areas of sex education, reproductive health and managing the risks associated with sexuality. Youth work centres play an essential role in providing this information and service to young people and teenagers. The aim of this study was to review the scientific studies available on the impact of youth work centres on contraception and sexual practices among young people and adolescents. We carried out an automatic search on PubMed using an equation and a manual search on Google Scholar using keywords and the bibliographic references of the studies generated by the automatic search. Using this strategy, 4831 articles were identified, of which 2685 were eliminated as duplicates. A further 2146 articles were screened by reading titles, abstracts and full texts. In the end, 36 articles met the inclusion criteria. These articles studied the impact that sex education can have on young people’s contraception and sexual practices. From an in-depth analysis of the articles selected, it emerged that sex education programmes contributed to the adoption of contraceptive methods by adolescents in almost 86% of cases, and were effective in 85% of cases. Sex education programmes and youth work centres are important precursors in changing adolescent behaviour.