Acceptability of adolescents undertaking contraceptive counselling with pharmacist

The lack of comprehensive sexuality education in schools and the stigma around adolescents' sexual activity prevents adolescents from accessing high-quality accurate sexual and reproductive health information and services. For adolescents, pharmacists have the potential to be an entry point to sexual and reproductive health services in the primary care system. Understanding the acceptability of pharmacists delivering contraceptive counseling is important to ensure that delivery of service by pharmacists meets the needs of adolescents. We will use qualitative methods to better understand adolescents' views and experiences of receiving contraceptive information from community pharmacists to ascertain how we can improve the service delivery and experience of adolescents accessing sexual and reproductive health care in the pharmacy setting. This project sits within SPHERE, an NHMRC-funded Centre of Research Excellence in Sexual and Reproductive Health for Women in Primary Care. SPHERE is led by Professor Danielle Mazza and supported by multidisciplinary students and researchers in the Department of General Practice. The successful candidate will have the opportunity to be part of this team with support from supervisors.