Adolescent Friendly Health Clinics (AFHCS) in India and their compliance with government benchmarks: A scoping review

Abstract

Background: Adolescent Friendly Health Clinics (AFHCs) are one of the critical pillars of India’s Adolescent Health Programme-Rashtriya Kishor Swasthya Karyakram. The goal is to empower all adolescents to make informed decisions about their health and to access health services, allowing them to fully reach their potential. A review was conceptualised to assess the compliance of AFHCs with the benchmark proposed by the Government under Rashtriya Kishor Swasthya Karyakram. Methods: Three databases (PubMed, Scopus and Google Scholar) were searched for articles published between 2014 and 2022. A snowball search strategy was also used to retrieve all published articles. Based on the search strategy eight studies were included. Results: Evidence from the primary studies showed that the benchmarks need attention as privacy was lacking (six out of seven studies), unavailability of IEC material (four out of five), signages (two out of four), referrals (one out of two), and judgemental attitude of health care provider (one out of 3). Conclusions: It is crucial to address the existing gaps in order to make the clinics adolescent-friendly, as this could lead to increase utilization of services available in AFHCs and an overall improvement in their health, education, and employment. The improved health will catalyse achieving the Sustainable Development Goals indicators related to nutrition, reproductive health, sexual and intimate partner violence, child marriage, education, and employment.