The strategies used by the school health team during the delivery of sexual health information to unmarried adolescents in Malaysia
Vol. 8 No. 5 (2022), Original Research Article
Vol. 8 No. 5 (2022)

The strategies used by the school health team during the delivery of sexual health information to unmarried adolescents in Malaysia

Original Research Article
Categories: Public Health and Community Nursing
https://doi.org/10.33546/bnj.2223
Siti Hazariah Abdul Hamid
Department of Special Care Nursing, Kulliyyah (Faculty) of Nursing, International Islamic University Malaysia, Kuantan, Malaysia
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8061-5018
Debbie Fallon
Division of Nursing, Midwifery and Social Works, Faculty of Biology, Medicine and Health, The University of Manchester, United Kingdom
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7893-6576
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Keywords

school health team
 nurses
 sexual and reproductive health
 information
 unmarried adolescents
 scare tactics
 Malaysia

How to Cite

Abdul Hamid, S. H., & Fallon, D. (2022). The strategies used by the school health team during the delivery of sexual health information to unmarried adolescents in Malaysia . Belitung Nursing Journal, 8(5), 438–445. https://doi.org/10.33546/bnj.2223
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Abstract

Background: Adolescents’ sexual health is vital to overall health and well-being to achieve sustainable development goals. Yet, research on the strategies used by Malaysian school health teams regarding their experiences of providing sexual health information to adolescents is sparse.  

Objective: This study was conducted to explore the experiences of school health teams in Malaysia who provide unmarried adolescents with sexual health information either during school health visits or at health clinics, with a particular interest in the strategies they use to educate these young people. 

Methods: This qualitative study used semi-structured interview data from twenty participants from four multidisciplinary school health teams. The participants included staff nurses, medical officers, and family medicine specialists. The transcripts were analysed for common themes.

Results: Four main themes were identified: discourse on risk, being selective, using scare tactics and maintaining own honour. The findings indicate that the interactions between school health teams and unmarried adolescents were not always ‘adolescent friendly’. The school health teams tended to use discourses of ‘risk’ or scare tactics to encourage abstinence in the adolescents they advised. Staff were also selective about the information they gave, prioritising notions of ‘maintaining honour’ over ‘safer sex’ messages. 

Conclusion: This study revealed how school health teams perceived sexual health education to be about moral issues and social attitudes. Influenced by both culture and religion, the sexual health services provided were underpinned by a ‘moral’ approach and promoted abstinence. However, most of the nurses in this study held the belief that sexual health knowledge acts as an encouragement for sexual activity. Thus, as part of school health teams, nurses need to embrace evidence that improved sexual health education may delay sexual initiation and prevent unintended pregnancy and HIV/STDs. 

https://doi.org/10.33546/bnj.2223
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Supporting Agencies

This research was supported Malaysia Ministry of Education (MOE) through Fundamental Research Grant Scheme (FRGS/1/2022/SKK06/UIAM/02/2)

Copyright

Copyright (c) 2022 Siti Hazariah Abdul Hamid, Debbie Fallon

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

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Declaration of Conflicting Interest

The authors declare there is no conflict of interest.

Acknowledgment

The authors sincerely thank the school health team who generously spent their time for the interview, shared their experiences, and provided valuable input that was essential to improve adolescents’ sexual health services in Malaysia.

Authors’ Contributions

All authors contributed equally to the study concept, design, definition of intellectual content, literature search, data acquisition, data analysis, and manuscript preparation. SHAH also contributed to manuscript editing, and DF reviewed the manuscript. All authors were accountable in each stage of the study and approved the final version of the article to be published.

Data Availability

Research data is kept at the corresponding author’s university and will be released upon request if related.


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