Interventions to prevent unintended pregnancies among adolescents: a rapid overview of systematic reviews

Risks associated with unintended pregnancy include unsafe abortions, poor maternal health-seeking behaviour, poor mental health, and potentially, maternal and infant deaths. Adolescent girls with unintended pregnancies are particularly vulnerable as they are at higher risk of eclampsia, premature onset of labour, and increased neonatal morbidity and mortality. Unintended pregnancy, with the right combination of interventions, can be avoided. Evidence-based decision-making and the need for a robust appraisal of the evidence have resulted in many systematic reviews. This review of systematic reviews focuses on adolescent pregnancy prevention and will seek to facilitate evidence-based decision-making. Two review authors independently extracted data and assessed the methodological quality of each review according to the AMSTAR 2 criteria. We identified three systematic reviews from low- and middle-income countries and high-income counties and included all socioeconomic groups. We used vote counting and individual narrative review summaries to present the results. Overall, skill-building, peer-led and abstinence programmes were generally effective. Interventions focused on information only, counselling and interactive sessions provided mixed results. In contrast, exposure to parenting and delaying sexual debut interventions were generally ineffective. Adolescent pregnancy prevention interventions that deploy school-based primary prevention strategies, i.e. strategies that prevent unintended pregnancies in the first place, may effectively reduce teenage pregnancy rates, improve contraceptive use, attitudes and knowledge, and delay sexual debut. However, the included studies have methodological issues, and our ability to generalise the result is limited.

Automated summary

Risks associated with unintended pregnancy include unsafe abortions, poor maternal health-seeking behaviour, poor mental health, and potentially, maternal and infant deaths. Adolescent girls with unintended pregnancies are particularly vulnerable. Skill-building, peer-led and abstinence programs were generally effective, while interventions focused on information only, counselling and interactive sessions provided mixed results. Exposure to parenting and delaying sexual debut interventions were generally ineffective. School-based primary prevention strategies can effectively reduce teenage pregnancy rates, improve contraceptive use, attitudes and knowledge, and delay sexual debut.