There is a growing interest in addressing the ethical dilemma related to the engagement of adolescents in health research – particularly with regard to sexual and reproductive health. This points to the need to design and implement research that addresses the needs of adolescents and is culturally appropriate. Decisions on when an individual has adequate capacity to take part in research, most commonly use age as a proxy rather than directly assessing the capacity to understand the issues and make an informed decision on whether to participate in research or not. Unfortunately, there is an assumption that adolescents participation in research is more likely to be coerced and may not fully comprehend the issues related to the risk they may be taking when engaged in research. This paper examines the various potential ethical issues that may arise in conducting qualitative research to explore adolescents' experiences of sexual health issues. The paper will discuss the potential challenges of adolescent participation in sexual health research such as privacy and confidentiality, parental consent, emotional distress, power relations and power differential. While it is believed that it is possible to generalise relevant information from adult research, studies on the ethical aspects of adolescent participation in research are still needed, particularly in the field of sexual and reproductive health where there are often differences in knowledge, attitudes and practices of adults when compared with that of adolescents.