Adolescent Sexual and Reproductive Health Toolkit for - UNFPA

Situational Analysis for Adolescent Sexual and
Reproductive Health in Emergency Situations
After an emergency situation has stabilized, a situational
analysis will provide information about the baseline
status of adolescent RH needs and services and will
help the agency prioritize interventions as comprehensive
RH services are introduced. Situational
analyses may use several methods of data collection,
including secondary data, in-depth interviews,
focus group discussions, community mapping,
and facility assessments.
As mentioned in the introduction to this section,
there are certain ethical considerations that must
be taken into account when conducting a situational
analysis. If all of the ethical requirements cannot be
met, then it is inappropriate to proceed with the
situational analysis.
Example: Focus group discussions (FGD)
Focus group discussions (FGDs) require a significant
amount of planning and preparation. Selection of the
discussion participants is important. Participants in a
focus group should be of similar age and sex, have
comparable levels of education, speak the same
language and be from similar socio-economic
backgrounds. Discussions conducted as part of an
assessment for an ASRH program, for example, may
be held with separate focus groups of adolescent
boys, unmarried adolescent girls, married adolescent
girls, CAAFAG, separated boys, etc. The ideal number
of participants per FGD should be 8-10 persons. In
addition to the focus group participants, there
should be one discussion leader, who is responsible
for asking the questions and guiding the encounter,
and one reporter, who is responsible for documenting
all that is said during the course of the discussion.
The participants, leader and reporter should sit in a
circle to encourage equal participation and to discourage
the perception that any individual is
dominant over another.
Prior to conducting the FGD, the objective of the
discussion should be determined and the question
guide should be developed. The ideal number of
questions to be asked during an FGD is 10-12 and
adequate time should be set aside to ask the questions
and allow for in-depth discussion. If too little
time is allocated or too many questions are asked,
the information obtained from the FGD may be
superficial and of little benefit to the program. In
general, a minimum of two discussions should be
held with each focus group, and discussions should
be held with additional participants within each
focus group until no new information is obtained.
(Additional guidance on how to select participants,
conduct FGDs and analyze the data can be found in the
“Selected readings,” referenced at the end of this section.)
The following matrix illustrates the types of questions
that can be asked of stakeholders during focus group
discussions to gather information on the RH needs
and practices of adolescents. For each focus group,
program managers should select a maximum of 10-12
questions from the sample and adapt them to fit the
context of the situation.
Assessment Tools
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