Abstract
BACKGROUND/OBJECTIVES: To address vaccine hesitancy, health promotion strategies must go beyond passive information delivery and identify individuals' beliefs about vaccination. Focus groups (FGs) have emerged as promising tools in health education and behavioral change initiatives. METHODS: To assess the employ of FGs in planning immunization strategies for adolescents, a systematic review of literature was performed from inception to July 2025 following PRISMA guidelines. PubMed/MEDLINE, Scopus, Web of Science, and Google Scholar databases were searched. CONCLUSIONS: Twenty articles met the inclusion criteria. In these studies, FGs were used to identify barriers or facilitators to vaccination, mainly to address HPV vaccine hesitancy. Across the WHO SAGE 3C framework, the outcomes of FGs clustered more in confidence and convenience/constraints than in complacency domain. These findings highlight the potential of FGs in designing programs to increase vaccine uptake. Further research on their possible role in motivating parents or adolescents towards immunization is needed.