‘They haven’t a clue!’ A qualitative study of staff perceptions of 11–14 year-old female clinic attenders

Abstract

Against a background of decreasing age at sexual debut, local Brook staff voiced concerns about the increase in clinic attenders under the age of 14 years, who appeared to engage in risky behaviours. This exploratory study, carried out with service providers in a young persons sexual health clinic, aimed to discover what issues staff felt were important to 11–14 year-old girls, in order that a future study be conducted with the young girls themselves. Service providers from two Brook Advisory Centres were interviewed. The interviews were semi-structured and analysed using content analysis. Many of the issues that staff identified as important to young girls mirrored current research findings with older adolescents. These were: alcohol consumption, peer pressure, low self-esteem and confidence, and a lack of knowledge around sexually transmitted infections. However, a new issue to emerge was the high proportion of young girls attending the clinic for the emergency contraceptive pill despite not knowing whether they had had intercourse or not. The study also found that staff perceived the need to understand issues from the perspective of the young girls themselves.

Staff identified a necessity for improved sex education and education around peer pressure and assertiveness, whilst topics for future research which emerged from the study findings included issues of self-esteem, dynamics of peer/media pressure and why young girls feel that they need to have sex.