Open Collections

Khan, Zeba

University of British Columbia

Access to contraception care, and the knowledge to make informed decisions about contraceptive choices is a critical aspect of reproductive autonomy. Yet, it remains out of reach for many newcomer youth in Canada. I aimed to describe the current literature on the experiences of newcomer youth’s access to contraception in Canada (Aim 1), explore the role of settlement service providers in making contraceptive care accessible to newcomer youth (Aim 2) and investigate the experiences of newcomer youth’s access to contraception care in Canada (Aim 3). I conducted a scoping review of published literature on the experiences of newcomer youth and summarized my findings. My scoping review revealed that sociocultural context is an important factor that determines newcomer youth’s access to contraception care, and culturally appropriate educational interventions can support their ability to access contraception. To explore the role of settlement service providers, I designed a knowledge translation activity consisting of two workshops and an infographic summarizing the key messages generated in the workshops. I learned that settlement service providers are trusted resources in the community who can help newcomer youth navigate contraception access. However, lack of training and referral pathways limit their ability to support youth. Finally, I conducted the analysis of fourteen qualitative one-to-one interviews with newcomers aged 15 to 25 years in Canada and applied a constructivist grounded theory analysis to generate novel theories to explain youth experiences. I identified five analytical themes: i) Sex is a shameful thing that we don’t talk about ii) Preferring contraception options that allow youth to ‘grab n go’ iii) I think you learn from and trust your friends iv) Ability to Seek and Pay v) Ability to Perceive and Engage. My interpretation of the interviews suggests that developing knowledge translation tools for newcomer youth that provide rich, narrative descriptions of various contraceptive methods, and include information on the attributes of contraception that are most important to them can help make contraception care more accessible to newcomer youth living in Canada. In addition, providing appropriate training and resources to settlement service providers can empower them to help newcomer youth navigate contraception care.

Text

2023-08-24

Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International

http://hdl.handle.net/2429/85625

Reproductive and Developmental Sciences

University of British Columbia

UBCV

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/