264528 Family planning provider barriers to family planning services in urban Nigeria

Monday, October 29, 2012 : 2:45 PM - 3:00 PM

Hilary Schwandt, PhD, MHS , Center for Communication Programs, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD
Ilene S. Speizer, PhD, MHS , SPH - Maternal and Child Health, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC
Meghan Corroon, MPH, MURP , Measurement, Learning and Evaluation Project, Carolina Population Center, Chapel Hill, NC, Albania
Fatima Bunza, MD, MBA , Systems Strengthening Advisor, Nigerian Urban Reproductive Health Initiative (NURHI), Abuja, Nigeria
Akinsewa Akiode, MSc, MPH , African Population and Health Research Center (APHRC), Abuja, 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.

Learning Areas:
Provision of health care to the public

Learning Objectives:
• Describe the types of barriers imposed by providers on access to family planning methods • Recognize the methods with the most provider imposed barriers • Determine which providers are the most likely to offer family planning with few restrictions to use • Identify facility-based training strategies for reducing provider imposed barriers to family planning use

Keywords: Family Planning, Service Delivery

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: I have been studying reproductive health in sub-Saharan Africa for six years.
Any relevant financial relationships? No

I agree to comply with the American Public Health Association Conflict of Interest and Commercial Support Guidelines, and to disclose to the participants any off-label or experimental uses of a commercial product or service discussed in my presentation.