| dc.description.abstract | Background: Youth is an age where access to quality sexual and reproductive health services and care is of particular importance. In The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) where young girls’ sexuality and sexual activity are often stigmatized, poor sexual and reproductive health (SRH) care can limit the utilization of SRH services, thereby leading to
poor health outcomes. This thesis is based on a broader study funded by the Global Fund to Fight Aids, Tuberculosis and Malaria (GFATM) and the World Health Organization (WHO) which developed and implemented a package of interventions aimed at improving the knowledge, attitudes, skills and competencies of health workers and health managers. The
study included mystery client assessments and exit interviews with youth. This thesis aims to understand youths’ perceptions and experiences of care and services delivered by health workers trained as part of the intervention.
Methods: This study analyses secondary data collected from semi-structured interviews with both mystery clients (n=16) and youth exit interviews (n=16). These interviews were reviewed, coded, and analysed using thematic analysis. The analysis was based on the WHO standards of quality health care and the six guiding principles for SRH.
Results: The majority of the participants reported that they felt satisfied or very satisfied with the services including how they were welcomed and received by health workers. A minority of the youth indicated they were not satisfied and left the facility feeling that they had not received the answers, care, or treatment they hoped for. Findings indicate that contextual factors such as strikes, heavy workload and lack of medical equipment and supplies may hinder health workers in delivering high quality services to youth. A few of the youth clients reported that health workers made judgemental and inappropriate comments.
Conclusion: The findings show there is an ongoing need for efforts to improve health worker attitudes, competencies, and skills to meet the needs of youth, but also to ensure health workers have an enabling environment that motivates them to provide quality sexual and reproductive health care to youth. An explicit focus on ensuring the eight standards of quality health care and the six principles of SRH in future comprehensive interventions may lead to improvements in the SRH outcomes for youth in sub-Saharan Africa and aid in fulfilling SDG 3.7 by 2030.
Keywords: Youth, SRH services, DRC, intervention, health workers. | |
