In recent years, clinical guidelines for family planning service delivery have become an important element of national reproductive health programs in developing countries. However, in spite of the major human and financial resources invested in guideline creation and dissemination, little research has been conducted in the developing world to assess the effectiveness of new clinical guidelines and to determine why providers often deny services to particular clients. We collected baseline, midpoint, and follow-up data in Ghana over a five year period to assess family planning service provider adherence to new family planning service delivery guidelines and to evaluate trends in client characteristics and provider adherence to guidelines over the last five years. The evaluation methodology had two main components. First, two family planning Situation Analysis studies in more than 100 clinics comprised baseline and mid-point data for an examination of changing provider practices over a three year period. A third situation analysis conducted in a sub-sample of 40 clinics allowed evaluation of data from both high and low intensity dissemination efforts over a five year period. A second component of the evaluation included simulated client visits to 20 urban and peri-urban clinics three times during a five year period.
Learning Objectives: At the end of this session, the learner will be able to: describe the relevance of guidelines to family planning service delivery, describe the methodological constraints to impact evaluations in this program setting, and describe study findings about provider adherence to family planning guidelines over a 5 year period in Ghana
Keywords: Family Planning, Quality of Care
Presenting author's disclosure statement:
Organization/institution whose products or services will be discussed: None
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.