The effect of covid-19 pandemic on access to family planning services among adolscents in kawempe division, kampala city

Abstract

The study sought to understand how COVID-19 pandemic affected adolescent access to family planning services. The specific objectives of the study were; to find out how COVID-19 was a key constraint in adolescent access to family planning services, to find out other factors that supported COVID-19 to constrain access to family planning among adolescents and to find out the strategies that were adopted to ensure continued access to family planning services among adolescents amidst lockdown in Kawempe Division.The study adopted a qualitative approach to social research and an exploratory cross-sectional design was adopted to get a snapshot on the impact of COVID-19 on adolescent access to family planning services in Kawempe Division. The study adopted a non-probability sampling technique in which primary and secondary study participants were purposively chosen. Findings The study findings revealed that COVID-19 pandemic was a key constraint to adolescent access to family planning services and was supported by other factors like community views about adolescent access to family planning services, religion and contraceptive side effects. However, both adolescents and health workers adopted strategies to ensure continuity of family planning services among adolescents like clinical delivery of family planning services and online consultation. Conclusion and recommendation Overall, the study revealed that COVID-19 had an impact on adolescent access to family planning services in Kawempe Division. It’s therefore prudent to have a combined effort among health workers, the government of Uganda and adolescents to revise means of ensuring continuity of family planning services amidst challenging time like that of COVID19