RESUMO
BACKGROUND: Women working in Cambodian garment factories have unmet needs for family planning (contraception and safe abortion) services, because of their background and living conditions. This study describes their experiences regarding abortion and contraception as part of a larger project to develop an intervention to support comprehensive post-abortion care. METHODS: We conducted semi-structured interviews with women seeking abortion services at private health facilities. In addition, we interviewed the private providers of abortion and contraception services surrounding garment factories. Interviews lasted up to 60 min and were conducted in Khmer and later translated into English. A thematic analysis was undertaken, with medical abortion experiences coded according to the Cambodia comprehensive abortion care protocol. RESULTS: We interviewed 16 women and 13 providers between August and November 2018. Most women reported being married and had at least one child. Among factory workers the major reported reasons for abortion were birth spacing and financial constraints. Family, friends, or co-workers were the major information resources regarding abortion and contraception, and their positive or negative experiences strongly influenced women's attitude towards both. Medical abortion pills were not always provided with adequate instructions. Half of the participants had a manual vacuum aspiration procedure performed after medical abortion. While women knew the side effects of medical abortion, many did not know the adverse warning signs and the signs of abortion completion. Only three women started post abortion family planning, as most of the women expressed fear and hesitation due to concerns about side effects of modern contraception. Fear of infertility was particularly reported among young women without children. CONCLUSION: This research shows that in this setting not all women are receiving comprehensive abortion care and contraceptive counselling. Provision of accurate and adequate information about abortion methods and modern contraception was the dominant shortfall in abortion care. Future work to address this gap could involve the development of appropriate interventions and informative tools for women in the Cambodian garment industry such as through existing client contact-centres or social media, including creation of videos or posts on topics that come from clients questions.
RESUMO
BACKGROUND: In Cambodia, abortion has been legally permitted on request during the first trimester of pregnancy since 1997. However, although there has been an increase in the percentage of women having induced abortion and medical abortion, there has also been a decrease in the percentage of women who say they received help from a health worker with their abortion. These data point toward the demedicalization of abortion, and although medical abortion has been shown to be safe, there are concerns about safety, given the variety of available products and counseling provided. These concerns are particularly relevant for female factory workers, who typically come from rural areas where access to good health care and information about reproductive health care is limited. OBJECTIVE: This study aims to understand the reproductive health needs of female Cambodian garment factory workers after medical abortion from a multidisciplinary and mixed-methods perspective, focusing on how they seek and share medical abortion- and health-related information; how they use their mobile phones for this and other purposes; what cultural challenges exist around reproductive health; and how they might be magnified or mitigated by mobile phones, linguistic challenges around health care, and mobile phone use. The main purpose of this study is to combine multidisciplinary methods, theories, and expertise to gain new, culturally grounded insights into family planning and medical abortion in Cambodia, but the findings could help inform the development of a relevant intervention to support comprehensive postabortion care. METHODS: The methods proposed are interviews and participant observation among factory workers, health providers, and mobile phone providers; a linguistic analysis of relevant data (interview transcripts, web-based sources, and other fieldwork materials); and digital methods to understand what kind of information about medical abortion exists on the web in Cambodia and how it is accessed by the targeted population. RESULTS: The data collection part of the project will end on December 31, 2020. The team conducted 67 semistructured interviews with female factory workers, women who sought a medical abortion, health providers, and mobile phone providers; participant observation with factory workers and health providers; and an analysis of YouTube and Facebook to understand what kind of information is available, who creates it, and how it is used. The team is currently performing data analysis, and the findings are clustered around (1) the use of mobile phones and digital resources for health-related and medical abortion-related information, (2) the experience of medical abortion care, and (3) the development of an intervention through edutainment videos. CONCLUSIONS: The project highlights both the widely untapped potential of using digital platforms (especially YouTube and Facebook) to distribute accurate information on medical abortion and the challenges in providing individual information via mobile phones while respecting individuals' privacy. INTERNATIONAL REGISTERED REPORT IDENTIFIER (IRRID): DERR1-10.2196/17779.
RESUMO
BACKGROUND: The MObile Technology for Improved Family Planning (MOTIF) trial assessed a mobile phone-based intervention comprising voice messages and counsellor support to increase post-abortion contraception at four Marie Stopes International clinics in Cambodia. The aim of this process evaluation was to assess participants' interaction with the intervention from a service provider perspective. METHODS: (1) We conducted a descriptive analysis to assess participants' interaction with the intervention. (2) In order to explore how the intervention might work, we assessed associations between interaction with the intervention and contraception use using logistic regression analysis. (3) We undertook a logistic regression analysis to assess associations between baseline socio-demographic factors and ever requesting to speak to a counsellor (pressing '1'), a variable found to be associated with contraception use. RESULTS: Amongst 249 women that received six interactive voice messages +/- counsellor support for contraception, around half actively requested to speak to a counsellor (pressed '1') and over 90% spoke to a counsellor at some stage. Women who spoke to the counsellor having requested to (by pressing '1') were more than four times as likely to be using effective contraception at four months compared to women who didn't request or speak to the counsellor (Odds Ratio 4.39; 95% CI: 1.15-16.71). There was a small, non-statistically significant increase in contraception use amongst women that spoke to the counsellor without requesting a call. Increased parity, a history of >2 previous induced abortions, lower socio-economic status, and medical abortion (after adjusting for age, socio-economic status and residence) were associated with requesting to speak to a counsellor. CONCLUSIONS: The interactive message can identify a subgroup of women in whom counselling will be more effective and appears to be equitable in terms of engaging those most in-need. The intervention could be adapted based on the findings of this study.
RESUMO
BACKGROUND: The MObile Technology for Improved Family Planning (MOTIF) trial assessed a mobile phone-based intervention comprising voice messages and counsellor support to increase post-abortion contraception at four Marie Stopes International clinics in Cambodia. The aim of this process evaluation was to assess women's views and experiences of receiving the MOTIF intervention, gain insights into the mechanism of action of the intervention and seek recommendations for improvements. METHODS: We conducted a qualitative study comprising15 semi-structured interviews with women who had received the intervention and undertook a simple thematic analysis. RESULTS: We identified themes relating to communication via mobile phone, supporting contraception use, broader post-abortion care, interaction with family and friends and suggestions for improvement. The majority of women were positive about the mobile phone-based intervention to support contraception use and reported it to be a convenient way to ask questions or get advice without going to a health centre, although a few women found the voice messages intrusive. The intervention supported contraception use by provision of information, encouragement, reminders to return to clinic, reassurance and advice for problems and had a positive effect on contraceptive uptake and continuation. Women reported a sense of being cared for and received support for additional physical and emotional issues. Most women thought that the duration of the intervention and frequency of messages were acceptable. CONCLUSIONS: The majority of women were positive about the mobile phone-based intervention which provided support for contraception use as well as additional physical and emotional issues. The study provides some insights into how the intervention might have worked and considers how the intervention could be improved.