A recent study conducted by the SPHERE Centre for Research Excellence at Monash University explores how community pharmacies could play a greater role in providing contraception information and services to adolescents.
Published in eClinicalMedicine, the study, Contraception and abortion information and care in community pharmacy for adolescents: a systematic review, reveals that both adolescents and community pharmacists are interested in the enhanced access to sexual and reproductive health services that community pharmacy offers, although barriers remain.
The number of teen pregnancies has declined in Australia in recent years, but research has found that teen pregnancy and parenthood are associated with higher risks of maternal mortality and morbidity, experience of violence, and impact on education, employment and reproductive health.
Lead author, Dr Anisa Assifi, a SPHERE research fellow, said the new study underscores the importance of quality, adolescent-friendly sexual and reproductive health (SRH) services in ensuring positive health and socioeconomic outcomes for adolescents.
She said adolescents face unique and at times greater challenges when accessing SRH services than adults, including stigma, limited knowledge, out-of-pocket costs, and restrictive legislative frameworks.
“Community pharmacies offer a promising, accessible alternative, but only if pharmacists are equipped and supported to meet adolescents’ needs,” Dr Assifi said.
“Many adolescents also lack SRH knowledge and have poorer health literacy than adults, delaying their access to services. They may then encounter providers who hold stigmatised views and/or lack understanding of adolescent SRH needs at the point of care.”
Dr Assifi said that unlike previous reviews, this is the first to focus specifically on contraceptive and abortion care for adolescents.
Findings highlight that despite adolescents’ experience and fear of embarrassment, and judgement, they felt that community pharmacies were an accessible and convenient source of contraceptive services. The study emphasises the importance of making it easier and equitable for adolescents to access ‘friendly’ health services.
Pharmacists were seen as knowledgeable, but their comfort and willingness to provide adolescent-specific care varied. Pharmacists themselves reported a perceived need for additional training in this area.
Dr Assifi emphasised that the study’s focus on community pharmacy should be viewed as a complementary option for SRH information and care provision, not competition with other health providers.
The study calls for standardised service delivery to reduce variability and misinformation, to expand pharmacists’ scope of practice with appropriate support and regulation and for further research into how pharmacies can be better supported to deliver adolescent-centred care.
Dr Assifi concluded that community pharmacies can be a vital entry point into the health system for adolescents – if we make them truly adolescent-friendly.
