Knowledge and attitude towards contraceptive use among adolescents in Africa: a systematic review

A 46% rate of unintended pregnancies among adolescents in Africa is a glaring notification of the barriers to contraception. There is little documentation of the knowledge and attitude towards contraceptive use among adolescents in Africa especially from systematic review perspective, which purposed this study. An E-literature search of the studies on the topic was conducted through PubMed, and Google Scholar, considering a period between January 2015 to August 2021. The search strategy used; “knowledge and attitude towards contraceptive use among adolescents in Africa”, which was sorted by date. The search resulted in 14,468 journal articles: 14,300 from Google Scholar, and 168 from PubMed but only 27 studies qualified for inclusion. Results indicate inadequate knowledge of contraception but this varies by age, level of education, marital status and geographical distribution. The majority of adolescents are aware of emergency contraception and traditional methods such as abstinence, lactational amenorrhea, and coïtus interruptus. Even with this knowledge, a larger proportion of adolescents do not use contraception due to limited access, misinformation on side effects and the negative attitude shaped by religious and socio-cultural beliefs and attitude of health care providers to them. Adolescent boys have more knowledge of contraception than the adolescent girls do but their use of contraceptives is not well documented. The low level of knowledge and negative attitude limits the use of these services and could be addressed by a well-informed approach on sexuality literacy and contraception that involves not only adolescents but also parents, the community and health care providers