Family planning counselling and use among clients seeking abortion services in private health facilities in Kenya

Abstract

This paper examines family planning service provision and use among clients seeking abortion services in private health facilities in Kenya. Data are from observations of client-provider interactions and exit interviews conducted in May-June 2013 with 125 clients from 30 private clinics in Kisumu, Nairobi, and Mombasa counties. Analysis entails simple frequencies, cross-tabulations with Chi-square tests, and estimation of multivariate logistic regression models. The results show that: (1) although 78% of the clients had used family planning before, it was mostly short-acting methods such as condoms (44%), injectables (35%), oral (40%) and emergency (26%) pills; (2) providers did not counsel clients on family planning in 20% of the consultations while clients were offered a method in 47% of the consultations; and (3) among clients who had ever used family planning and accepted a method during the visit, 60% chose a different method with the shift being from short-acting to long-term methods.