This newsletter presents materials that can help health care workers provide better family planning services. It examines the research behind these tools for service delivery, and it reports on efforts to encourage their use.
These tools for service delivery offer ready reference and practical guidance to providers, based on the most current evidence from research and programs. They include instructions for what a woman should do if she forgets to take contraceptive pills, a simple chart depicting contraceptive effectiveness, and FHI's checklists for determining a client's eligibility for various contraceptive methods. Also described is a new international publication for family planning providers, which brings together many of these service delivery tools in one easy-to-use handbook.
We hope you find this issue of our newsletter useful and informative. We would also like to hear from you, so please send your comments.
In this issue:
Global Family Planning Handbook
Family Planning: A Global Handbook, offers evidence-based recommendations to help family planning providers apply research findings in their everyday practice. This new handbook is one of the World Health Organization's "four cornerstones" of family planning guidance.
Missed-Pill Instructions
Many clients and even some family planning providers are not sure what a woman should do when she fails to take her contraceptive pills regularly. A study by FHI led to the development of clearer guidance for users of the Pill.
Pregnancy Checklist for Providers
A checklist developed and evaluated by FHI is highly effective in ruling out pregnancy in settings where laboratory tests are unavailable or unaffordable. Studies have shown that this simple screening tool improves women's access to family planning services.
Integrating Services in Nigeria
The adaptation of a training module on contraception for women and couples living with HIV was the first step in an ambitious effort to integrate family planning into one of the world's largest HIV projects.
Contraceptive Effectiveness
Research has shown that women often do not understand how well various contraceptive methods protect against pregnancy. A simple chart evaluated by FHI promotes informed choices by improving a client's knowledge about the relative effectiveness of available methods.
Uganda Adapts Checklists
Uganda is one of a number of countries that have adapted FHI's contraceptive checklists to help improve women's access to effective family planning methods. The Ugandan Ministry of Health is promoting the use of four simple checklists that help providers determine whether clients are eligible to use various methods.
