An innovative ICT intervention to increase continuation rates of injectable contraceptives in India

Purpose of the work: To demonstrate an increase in continuation rates of DMPA Injectable Contraceptive through post-use support from a contraceptive hotline in India Data used: Mobile phone numbers of clients adopting DMPA are collected by field workers from client records at provider network clinics across seven cities in North India that are part of the USAID-funded MBPH Dimpa network. Under the intervention, first time users get a reassurance call after one week and after one month after injection when they are supposed to experience maximum after effects of DMPA. A reminder call is also made a week before due date of next injection. Major results: Out of the user data base available, hotline counselors were able to make successful outbound calls to 39% users. Of these, 47.5% were first time users and 52.5% were repeat users. Nearly 84% users discontinued the injection after first DMPA injection. In this activity users who got their injection in July 2011 where not given any intervention and only called to check if they had taken subsequent injection. It was observed that when hotline counseling support was given to subsequent users from September '11 onwards, there was an increase in the overall continuation rates. It was seen that for July users wherein no intervention was given, only 60.7% client continued compared with 77.9% continuation after counseling and reminder calls by hotline counselor. There were 39.3% lapsed users of July and when counseling was given the lapsed user percentage dropped to 22.1% in September '11.