More than 650 million women alive today were married as children. Relative to efforts to prevent child marriage, efforts to support child brides have received much less attention. This review set out to map and describe interventions that support child brides. We performed a scoping review using seven electronic databases coupled with a grey literature search in January 2022. Data were extracted using a piloted extraction tool and findings were reported in narrative synthesis. A total of 34 projects were included in our review. Most projects focused on improving sexual and reproductive health (SRH) knowledge and behaviours among child brides, which was often achieved through a combination of SRH education, counselling and information provision, along with linkages to SRH services. Some interventions were health facility-based and aimed at improving responsiveness of health service providers to the needs of child brides. Very few described economic interventions as one component of a broader health intervention, and only three interventions focused on improving girls' educational outcomes. We also note the paucity of media-based interventions, despite their popularity among adolescents. Over time, interventions addressing the needs of child brides have increased, but the preponderance of evidence has focused on SRH interventions, with interventions that couple education with adolescent-friendly health services demonstrating promise. Interventions addressing other areas of health and social wellbeing of this group, such as mental health, sexual health, and economic independence, have been overlooked in comparison. The review highlights the need for additional empirical evidence on what works to support child brides.
Keywords: adolescent; child marriage; interventions; low- and middle-income countries; scoping review.
Women and girls who are married under age 18 have specific vulnerabilities and unique needs for interventions and services. While child marriage prevention has received substantial attention over the past decade, as evidenced by several systematic reviews investigating what works to prevent child marriage, very few reviews have been done to assess the effectiveness of interventions that address the needs of child brides. This review takes stock of programmes and interventions that have a specific focus on meeting the health and social needs of child brides. Our review finds that most published interventions focus on improving sexual and reproductive health outcomes in this population, and few interventions target the mental health needs and social wellbeing of this group, despite evidence that child brides have worse mental health outcomes and are more likely to experience adverse social outcomes like intimate partner violence. Programming to enhance women and girls’ economic wellbeing and education are also underrepresented in this body of literature. With a critical mass of studies investigating sexual and reproductive health outcomes in this group, we can conclude that programmes which empower child brides with knowledge and SRH information when coupled with referral and accompaniment to adolescent and women friendly health services show serious potential for improving outcomes.