Maintaining strong partnerships, cocreating activities with local stakeholders, coordinating with the existing health system, and aligning interventions with national priorities are key to effectively addressing the sexual and reproductive health (SRH) services needs within communities of internally displaced persons (IDPs). n Fragile security conditions, retention of trained providers, and barriers toward sexual and genderbased violence services had detrimental roles in improving access to SRH services among IDPs, which were exacerbated by coronavirus disease (COVID-19). n Lessons and successful approaches identified by those closest to the project, including IDPs who received services, health facility staff, and local government partners and partner organizations working in this space, offer a path for effective prioritization of sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) within IDP and similar humanitarian contexts.
Objective
To evaluate an intervention that aimed at strengthening voluntary access to long‐acting reversible contraception (LARC) within postabortion care (PAC) in hospitals in mainland Tanzania and Zanzibar.
Methods
From 2016 to 2018, we conducted PAC quality improvement interventions, emphasizing family planning (FP) counseling and voluntary access to LARC. Researchers conducted an interrupted time‐series analysis of service statistics compiled from 2014 to 2020 using segmented linear mixed effects regression models to assess the interventions' effect on postabortion contraceptive uptake.
Results
The intervention in mainland Tanzania was associated with an immediate 38% increase in postabortion LARC uptake, a trend that declined from late 2016 to mid‐2020 to 34%. In Zanzibar, the intervention was associated with a gradual increase in LARC uptake that peaked in late 2018 at 23% and stabilized at approximately 15% by mid‐2020. Whereas the interventions in mainland facilities did not generate significant changes in postabortion FP uptake overall, the launch of interventions in Zanzibar in mid‐2016 was associated with a precipitous rise in that outcome over time, which plateaued at approximately 54% by 2019.
Conclusion
Increased voluntary uptake of postabortion contraception was associated with the introduction of training in PAC, including FP, and quality improvement interventions and gains were sustained over time.
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