Barriers to Emergency Contraception for Adolescents

Unintended teenage pregnancies are a critical public health issue, and reducing teenage pregnancy is an important health care goal. Even though health care providers want to encourage sexually active adolescents to use routine contraception correctly, emergency contraception (EC) provides an appropriate emergency option for patients whose first line of defense has failed. Recent cross-sectional, various non-experimental, and qualitative research has found significant barriers to adolescents having access to or obtaining EC. Decreasing barriers to teen access is an important issue because research has shown that a young person's increased access to EC increases its use. The purpose of this article is to review relevant literature focused on the barriers to EC use by adolescents. After reviewing the current state of the science, additional, higher levels of evidence about the current barriers to EC and more research focused on effective interventions to decrease those barriers are required.