Sexual health services: what do teenagers want?

Background Multi-agency approaches based on assessment of local need have been recommended to reduce the incidence of teenage pregnancy. This paper explores the views of local teenagers on current and future provision of sexual health services in one part of Leicester, UK.

Aim To examine current provision and the views of teenagers on how these could be improved.

Method A questionnaire was developed from literature review and focus group interviews. It was administered to 13–16-year-olds in two schools, and by post to 16–19-year-olds, using the age-sex registers of five of the seven local practices.

Results Of the 399 school attenders aged 13–16 years sampled, 394 (98.7%) completed the questionnaire. The postal questionnaire was sent to 1255 teenagers aged 16–19 years. After removal of wrong addresses, the response rate was 317 of 1213 (26.1%). In total, 711 people completed the questionnaire, of whom 459 (64.6%) were male. General practitioners and pharmacists were the main suppliers of contraception for females and males, respectively, with lack of awareness of the range and location of sexual health services. Major barriers included fears about embarrassment, confidentiality and being examined, especially in general practice.

Conclusions Our results suggest that in this locality, the priority should be informing teenagers about existing services, and ensuring confidentiality is both practised and publicised. A leaflet to this effect has been produced and disseminated.

Implications for practice Qualitative and quantitative methods are helpful in assessing local need for teenage services and in directing their development.