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Thuy Thi Thu Truong, Vietnam Academy of Social Sciences, VietnamAbstract
Background: Adolescent reproductive health care is a critical aspect of ensuring the well-being of human resource in the future. However, Vietnamese adolescents are facing of unsafe sex and its associated negative outcomes, including unintended pregnancies, sexually transmitted infections and unsafe abortions.
Objective: This study aimed to determine some socio-cultural barriers hindering reproductive health care behaviors among ethnic minority adolescents in Vietnam.
Methods: This cross-sectional study was carried out on 305 ethnic minority adolescents who are the Tay and Dao aged 15–19. The descriptive and bivariate correlation techniques were used to describe the adolescents’ difficulties in accessing reproductive health care information and contraceptive methods. The qualitative data were 22 in-depth interviews and focus group discussions.
Results: The harmful social norms, community stigma and poor communication between parents and children were the major hindrances for adolescents to seeking information from reliable sources and accessing reproductive health care services. The results showed that 96.7% of adolescents wanted to receive information from health care staffs but less than one-fifth had received information in the past 12 months. They also rarely accessed reproductive health care services due to feelings of embarrassment and fears of stigma or gossip.
Conclusions: Some socio-cultural barriers may lead to limitations in reproductive health education for adolescents and their access to health care services. The findings underscore the need to promote open parent–adolesscent communication on reproductive health care topics, and to enhance community awareness of the importance of reproductive health care beginning in adolescence.
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Conference: KAMC2025Stream: Gender
This paper is part of the KAMC2025 Conference Proceedings (View)
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To cite this article:
Truong T. (2026) Some Socio-Cultural Barriers to Reproductive Health Care Behaviors Among Ethnic Minority Adolescents in Vietnam ISSN: 2436-0503 – The Kyoto Conference on Arts, Media & Culture 2025: Official Conference Proceedings (pp. 21-27) https://doi.org/10.22492/issn.2436-0503.2025.3
To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.22492/issn.2436-0503.2025.3
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