Enhancing contraceptive stock out information with a couple years protection lost measure – a useful tool for family planning programs

Background: Programs aiming to increase the contraceptive prevalence rate must address contraceptive supply stock out issues in order to ensure that the supply is available to meet the increase in demand. The use of a binary measure recording whether or not a stock out has occurred at a specific facility obscures important information about the potential negative effect of that stock out, such as the potential number of new contraceptive adopters lost due to the stock out. Methods: Using monitoring data on stock outs at focal family planning cities, as part of the Nigeria Urban Reproductive Health Initiative (NURHI), we created a summary measure that includes important information about the potential effect of a stock out - the couple years protection lost (CYPL) measure. The CYPL combines information on client flow, stock outs and the published couple year protection for each method – and then is summed and presented as an aggregate measure at the facility level. Results: The results show that two facilities in Abuja with the same number of absolute contraceptive stock outs (10) between January and April 2012 have widely divergent CYPLs of 516 and 175. Similarly, two other facilities with widely divergent actual stock outs (4 and 10) have the same 175 CYPL value. Discussion: With the CYPL measure programs can target those family planning facilities with the most widely damaging stock outs first, to strategically reduce the negative impact of stock outs in an informed order of priority.