• J Travel Med · Jun 2024

    Review

    Sexual and reproductive health integration into pre-travel consultations: a scoping review.

    • Carlos Santaolaya, Juhi Malhotra, James A Fowler, Sarah Warzywoda, Joe Debattista, Deborah J Mills, Colleen Lau, Luis Furuya-Kanamori, Jo Durham, Amy B Mullens, Satrio N Istiko, and Judith A Dean.
    • School of Public Health, Faculty of Medicine, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, QLD 4006, Australia.
    • J Travel Med. 2024 Jun 3; 31 (4).

    BackgroundCasual sex during travel is a major preventable factor in the global transmission of sexually transmissible infections (STI). Pre-travel consults present an excellent opportunity for practitioners to educate travellers about sexual and reproductive health (SRH) and safety. This scoping review aims to explore and understand the extent to which SRH is included in pre-travel consultations.MethodsPubMed, Embase, Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature, Scopus, Medline and Web of Science were systematically searched for primary research articles exploring whether health care practitioners (HCP) included SRH in pre-travel consultations. Extracted findings were synthesized and presented in narrative form.ResultsFindings across 13 articles suggest HCPs infrequently broached SRH in pre-travel consultations with HCP discomfort, and lack of time and resources presented as key barriers. Urban practice settings, HCP experience, training in travel medicine and traveller characteristics such as sexual orientation were positively associated with discussions about SRH. SRH advice reported was general in nature, primarily focusing on safer sex, condoms or unspecified STI advice. Risk assessments based solely on age or stereotypes around sexual preferences led to key aspects of SRH care being missed for some (e.g. SRH was less likely to be discussed with older travellers).ConclusionsHCPs frequently miss opportunities to integrate SRH into pre-travel consultations. Strategies to promote HCP confidence and awareness present a promising means to boost the frequency and quality of SRH advice disseminated. Integrating culturally safe and responsive SRH history-taking and advice into pre-travel consultations may contribute to global reductions in STI transmission and promote traveller SRH well-being.© International Society of Travel Medicine 2024. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com.

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