Evaluation of the Youth Focused Social Network Initiative: A pilot project to improve young people's knowledge of and skills in accessing comprehensive abortion care in Nepal

While the abortion law in Nepal gives women the right to abortion up to 12 weeks of pregnancy, young women still face many socio-cultural and institutional barriers to services.  Ipas has undertaken a pilot project to increase young women’s knowledge of and skills in accessing comprehensive abortion care (CAC) in Rupandehi district. A baseline household survey conducted among women ages 16-24 in Rupandehi found that a majority of respondents reported receiving information on where to get a safe abortion (87%) and methods of abortion (57%) during the past year, yet less than half of the respondents (45%) knew that termination of pregnancy was legal.  Using these findings, the Youth Focused Social Network Initiative (YFSNI) was designed to mobilize peer educators to provide information and support related to CAC.  This mixed methods study is designed to evaluate the effectiveness of the YFSNI.  Data for this study come from two cross-sectional household surveys conducted from a sample drawn using a two-stage cluster sampling approach.  Baseline data were collected from 600 young women ages 16-24 and the endline survey is underway collecting data on knowledge of and skills in accessing safe abortion from 482 young women and 238 young men.  Additionally, 46 in-depth interviews will be conducted with key informants to examine their perceptions regarding the effectiveness of the intervention.  Findings from this evaluation will have implications for scale up of the program in other districts of Nepal as well as those interested in supporting young people’s access to reproductive health services.