Family planning provider barriers to family planning services in urban Nigeria

Provider imposed restrictions to family planning (FP) methods have been shown to be a major barrier to women's accessing quality reproductive health services (Bertrand, et al. 1995). Few studies to date have examined restrictions from the provider's perspective, particularly in the urban African context. This study examines FP provider barriers to FP services by method type, service provider characteristics and type of health setting (including public and private health facilities, pharmacies and patent medical stores). The data were collected in 2010-2011 as part of the baseline survey for the Nigeria Urban Reproductive Health Initiative in six cities: Abuja, Benin City, Ibadan, Ilorin, Kaduna and Zaria. Service providers were asked whether they restrict client's access to FP services due to client's age, number of children, marital status and partner consent. Initial descriptive results indicate that provider restrictions to FP services are a major barrier to access to FP services in all cities, most notably for access to injectables and IUD. Regional differences also exist between providers working in Northern cities as compared to Southern cities with well over half of providers in the North restricting access not only to injectables and IUD but also to pills and implants. Overall, more providers seem to restrict on marital status and partner consent than on client parity. Additional bivariate and multivariate analyses will be conducted to further examine the influence of provider's religion, location, cadre and type of health facility on his/her likelihood to restrict a client's access to FP services.