Sexual And Reproductive Empowerment (Upadhyay et al., 2021)

• Populations: Adolescents, Young Adults
• Age ranges: 15-24
• Languages: English, Dholuo, Kiswahili,
• Countries: Kenya; United States

Items

Subscales

• Comfort talking with partner,
• Choice of partners, marriage, and children,
• Parental support,
• Sexual safety,
• Self-love,
• Sense of future,
• Sexual Pleasure, 

Items by subscale

Comfort talking with partner

• If I had a romantic partner, I would feel comfortable talking about whether or not I want to have children with them.
• If I had a sexual partner, I would feel comfortable telling that person if I wanted to use a method to protect against infection or pregnancy, even when they did not want to
• If I had a romantic partner, I would feel comfortable voicing disagreements with them.

Choice of partners, marriage, and children

• I can freely choose if I get married
• I can freely choose who I marry
• I have the power to control if and when I have children

Parental support

• I have a parent or guardian who would help me with my problems and troubles if I needed
• I have a parent or guardian who accepts me as I am
•  I have a parent or guardian who trusts me to make the right decisions. 
•  I have a parent or guardian who helps me achieve my goals in life. 

Sexual safety

•  I am able to do the things I want to do without worrying about my safety.
• Walking down the street, I feel like my body is my own. 
• I do not feel afraid that I will be forced to do something sexually when I do not want to.
• I feel safe in my current living situation.

Self-love

• I like myself. 
• I am worthy of love. 
• I know my body well. 
• My body belongs to me.

Sense of future

• I can imagine what my future will be like. 
• I have an idea of how I can eventually reach my goals. 

Sexual Pleasure

• My sexual needs or desires are important. 
•  I think it would be important to focus on my own pleasure as well as my partner’s during sexual experiences.
• I expect to enjoy sex. 

Responses

Items used a 5 point scale, “not at all true” to “extremely true” [numerical values not reported]

Scoring

“All responses were captured on a 5-point Likert scale, with each point increase corresponding to higher empowerment.” (Zia et a., 2024)

Citations

• Upadhyay, U. D., Danza, P. Y., Neilands, T. B., Gipson, J. D., Brindis, C. D., Hindin, M. J., Foster, D. G., & Dworkin, S. L. (2021). Development and Validation of the Sexual and Reproductive Empowerment Scale for Adolescents and Young Adults. Journal of Adolescent Health, 68(1), 86–94. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jadohealth.2020.05.031
• Zia, Y., Upadhyay, U., Rhew, I., Kimanthi, S., Congo, O., Onono, M., Barnabas, R., Mugo, N., Bukusi, E. A., & Harrington, E. K. (2024). Confirmatory factor analysis and validation of the sexual and reproductive empowerment scale for adolescents and young adults in kenya. Studies in Family Planning, 55(2), 85-103. https://doi.org/10.1111/sifp.12263