Exploring barriers and strategies for improving sexual and reproductive health access for young men in Sweden: Insights from healthcare providers in youth clinics

Methods

Youth clinics in Sweden are not reaching young men to the same extent as young women. We conducted a qualitative study to explore healthcare providers’ (HCPs) perspectives on the barriers to young men’s access to sexual and reproductive health (SRH) services and how youth clinics can better accommodate the needs of young men. We used thematic analysis to analyze eight interviews with nine HCPs (three men and six women).

Results

We developed three themes: 1) It’s about the youth clinics and those working in them—the clinics suffered from low organizational support, which affected their ability to accommodate young men’s needs and were perceived as “girls’ clinics”. Midwifery, which is the main profession of HCPs working with SRH in the clinics, was perceived as a women’s profession for women’s SRH; 2) It’s not all about the youth clinics—young men were perceived as lacking essential knowledge about SRH and gender norms were preventing young men from visiting youth clinics; 3) Organizational strategies for improving access—the participants discussed strategies to attract young men, including separate reception for young men, hiring more male staff, having higher age limits for young men, and digital solutions to address privacy concerns.

Conclusion

There is a need for societal efforts to increase young men’s knowledge about SRH and improve their access to SRH services. Several strategies can be adapted by youth clinics to attract more young men but there is need for further research to design and evaluate such interventions.