Effectiveness of Integrating Family Planning - Maternal, Newborn and Child Health (MNCH) Services on Uptake of Voluntary Modern Contraceptive Methods

Overview

Aim To evaluate the impact of an integrated Family Planning-Maternal,Newborn and Child Health service delivery model to increase coverage of MCM in a rural Pakistan. Objectives * To gain an understanding of the cultural and health service delivery contexts to inform a socio-culturally appropriate and acceptable intervention package scalable in rural Pakistan. * To implement the intervention package at health facilities and outreach communities through existing public and private sector resources * To measure the impact and level of effectiveness of interventions on the uptake MCM * To identify and quantify the drivers of improved uptake of voluntary methods of FP especially MCM

Interventions focusing on community outreach programs and interpersonal communications increase social acceptance of FP methods. However, home based counseling alone is not sufficient for the uptake and continuation of FP methods and developing linkages with health facilities and maintaining privacy at a health facility and being more culturally and religiously acceptable is also important. With this in mind, efforts have been made involving facility and community level health care providers for provision of MNCH services as the primary mandate of National Maternal Newborn and Child Health program. However, there are still deficiencies at inter and intra facility level, for example; a lack of coordination among departments such as Paediatrics and Gynecology \& Obstetrics, lack of management level coordination with front line providers, lack of equipment and logistics management manifested as imbalance demand and supply and lack of overall governing bodies . Thus, overarching interventions covering service delivery platforms at facility and community levels necessitates the integration and scaling up of FP and MNCH services. The theoretical underpinning of behavior change will be based on the Theoretical Domain Framework (TDF) v2.0. The TDF will be applied to provide an in-depth exploration and understanding of factors on the demand and supply side and their interaction with and influences on FP uptake. This project aims to implement a complex intervention (see figure 2) within health facilities and their catchment communities. This complex intervention includes a series of strategies involving community engagement by extensive community mobilization, availability of trained staff and sustainable supply of commodities with the required recording and reporting system. Continuous process monitoring and quality assurance will help to replicate the success and address possible barriers during implementation of the intervention. The mechanism of action built on the TDF adopts domains and constructs including, knowledge, skills, beliefs and intentions. Furthermore, the TDF provides a detailed understanding of complex behaviour thus will be used to evaluate the impact of complex interventions/ strategies. Research Question What is the impact of integrating FP- MNCH services on uptake of voluntary modern contraceptive methods in a rural district of Sindh province, Pakistan?