Review of Iranian Adolescent's Educational Needs for Sexual and Reproductive Health

One of the global reproductive health priorities is adolescent reproductive health. Adolescent's reproductive health affects health aspects, formation of beliefs and socio-economic development of the society. In Iran, as the adolescents form a large part of the population, this issue has a special importance. Achieving the reproductive health goals is not possible without the knowledge, attitude and participation; and getting aware properly from puberty and sexual and reproductive health issues prevents many problems that can be risks. This study aimed to review the educational needs of Iranian adolescents for sexual and reproductive health.
In this review study, using keywords Iranian adolescent, puberty, sexual behavior, sexual health and sexual and reproductive health, Iranian related studies were searched in scientific databases from 1998 to 2015. Out of 52 qualitative and quantitative articles, 37 articles related to our aim according to the inclusion criteria of this review article, were studied.
Findings: Adolescent sexual reproductive needs and problems were integrated in three main domains: adolescent's domain (knowledge and attitude, information sources), school and family domain (role of parents and teachers, the content of the curriculum, time and manner of curriculum’s implementation) and Islam domains. The significant issues in this period were incorrect learning and unreliable sources of information, unawareness of adolescents, their parents and teachers from reproductive health needs, and religious orders.
Unfortunately, because of the shame, taboos, and cultural and social beliefs in society, appropriate education of sexual reproductive health for adolescents had been neglected in family and school. Besides, these issues did not inserted in textbooks.