Number/percent of practitioners trained in postabortion care by type and geographic distribution

Number/percent of practitioners trained in postabortion care by type and geographic distribution

Number/percent of practitioners trained in postabortion care by type and geographic distribution

The total number and percent of practitioners trained in postabortion care (PAC) by type of specialty and geographic location

As a percent, this indicator is calculated as:

# of practitioners of a particular specialty and practicing in a given area trained in PAC x 100
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Total #  of providers of that specialty practicing in the area (e.g., district)

PAC training consists of:

  • Understanding the impact of unsafe abortion on maternal mortality and morbidity;
  • Understanding unwanted pregnancy as a major cause of unsafe abortion;
  • Demonstrating sensitivity through the PAC process;
  • Detailing procedures and interventions needed to stabilize postabortion patients;
  • Detailing first aid procedures and interventions needed for postabortion patients;
  • Discussing the key issues related to postabortion contraception;
  • Providing family planning counseling to postabortion clients; and
  • Discussing the requirement of establishing referral systems for postabortion women.

Data Requirement(s):

Number of practitioners trained in PAC by specialty and geographic location; the number of all providers by spe­cialty and location of practice.

If targeting and/or linking to inequity, classify trainees by areas served (poor/not poor) and disaggregate by area served.

National program records; private and NGO program records; and training institution records (e.g., medical and midwifery school records)

The purpose of this indicator is to measure the extent to which practitioners are trained in PAC, which in turn influences the availability of such services.

If denominators by type of practitioner are available, data collected for this indicator may be used to deter­mine the percentage of provider types trained in a given country, for example, the percentage of ob-gyn or gen­eral practitioners or nurse-midwives trained in PAC.

A limitation of this indicator relates to the follow-up monitoring of practitioners applying their skills to their jobs. Training of providers often takes place in settings such as teaching hospitals. Once providers are assigned to their posts, they may find it challenging to apply the skills they learned. Once providers are spread out geo­graphically in a given country, evaluators may have dif­ficulty routinely monitoring how and whether they are using the skills they learned in training.

Alternative indicators may include:

  • Number and percent of medical and nursing schools incorporating PAC into their curricula; and
  • Number and percent of practitioners trained in PAC during pre-service and in-service training.

training, postabortion care, safe motherhood (SM)

Postabortion Care Training Course for Primary Health Care Facilities: Trainer’s Guide. Arab Republic of Egypt Ministry of Health and Population. 2005.

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Safe Motherhood

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