68
views
0
recommends
+1 Recommend
0 collections
    0
    shares
      • Record: found
      • Abstract: found
      • Article: found
      Is Open Access

      Progress and gaps in reproductive health services in three humanitarian settings: mixed-methods case studies

      research-article

      Read this article at

      Bookmark
          There is no author summary for this article yet. Authors can add summaries to their articles on ScienceOpen to make them more accessible to a non-specialist audience.

          Abstract

          Background

          Reproductive health (RH) care is an essential component of humanitarian response. Women and girls living in humanitarian settings often face high maternal mortality and are vulnerable to unwanted pregnancy, unsafe abortion, and sexual violence. This study explored the availability and quality of, and access barriers to RH services in three humanitarian settings in Burkina Faso, Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), and South Sudan.

          Methods

          Data collection was conducted between July and October 2013. In total, 63 purposively selected health facilities were assessed: 28 in Burkina Faso, 25 in DRC, and nine in South Sudan, and 42 providers completed a questionnaire to assess RH knowledge and attitudes. Thirty-four focus group discussions were conducted with 29 members of the host communities and 273 displaced married and unmarried women and men to understand access barriers.

          Results

          All facilities reported providing some RH services in the prior three months. Five health facilities in Burkina Faso, six in DRC, and none in South Sudan met the criteria as a family planning service delivery point. Two health facilities in Burkina Faso, one in DRC, and two in South Sudan met the criteria as an emergency obstetric and newborn care service delivery point. Across settings, three facilities in DRC adequately provided selected elements of clinical management of rape. Safe abortion was unavailable. Many providers lacked essential knowledge and skills. Focus groups revealed limited knowledge of available RH services and socio-cultural barriers to accessing them, although participants reported a remarkable increase in use of facility-based delivery services.

          Conclusion

          Although RH services are being provided, the availability of good quality RH services was inconsistent across settings. Commodity management and security must be prioritized to ensure consistent availability of essential supplies. It is critical to improve the attitudes, managerial and technical capacity of providers to ensure that RH services are delivered respectfully and efficiently. In addition to ensuring systematic implementation of good quality RH services, humanitarian health actors should meaningfully engage crisis-affected communities in RH programming to increase understanding and use of this life-saving care.

          Related collections

          Most cited references12

          • Record: found
          • Abstract: found
          • Article: not found

          Induced abortion: incidence and trends worldwide from 1995 to 2008

          The Lancet, 379(9816), 625-632
            Bookmark
            • Record: found
            • Abstract: found
            • Article: not found

            Estimates and determinants of sexual violence against women in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

            We sought to provide data-based estimates of sexual violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and describe risk factors for such violence. We used nationally representative household survey data from 3436 women selected to answer the domestic violence module who took part in the 2007 DRC Demographic and Health Survey along with population estimates to estimate levels of sexual violence. We used multivariate logistic regression to analyze correlates of sexual violence. Approximately 1.69 to 1.80 million women reported having been raped in their lifetime (with 407 397-433 785 women reporting having been raped in the preceding 12 months), and approximately 3.07 to 3.37 million women reported experiencing intimate partner sexual violence. Reports of sexual violence were largely independent of individual-level background factors. However, compared with women in Kinshasa, women in Nord-Kivu were significantly more likely to report all types of sexual violence. Not only is sexual violence more generalized than previously thought, but our findings suggest that future policies and programs should focus on abuse within families and eliminate the acceptance of and impunity surrounding sexual violence nationwide while also maintaining and enhancing efforts to stop militias from perpetrating rape.
              Bookmark
              • Record: found
              • Abstract: found
              • Article: not found

              Reproductive health: a right for refugees and internally displaced persons.

              Continued political and civil unrest in low-resource countries underscores the ongoing need for specialised reproductive health services for displaced people. Displaced women particularly face high maternal mortality, unmet need for family planning, complications following unsafe abortion, and gender-based violence, as well as sexually transmitted diseases, including HIV. Relief and development agencies and UN bodies have developed technical materials, made positive policy changes specific to crisis settings and are working to provide better reproductive health care. Substantial gaps remain, however. The collaboration within the field of reproductive health in crises is notable, with many agencies working in one or more networks. The five-year RAISE Initiative brings together major UN and NGO agencies from the fields of relief and development, and builds on their experience to support reproductive health service delivery, advocacy, clinical training and research. The readiness to use common guidance documents, develop priorities jointly and share resources has led to smoother operations and less overlap than if each agency worked independently. Trends in the field, including greater focus on internally displaced persons and those living in non-camp settings, as well as refugees in camps, the protracted nature of emergencies, and an increasing need for empirical evidence, will influence future progress.
                Bookmark

                Author and article information

                Contributors
                Journal
                Confl Health
                Confl Health
                Conflict and Health
                BioMed Central
                1752-1505
                2015
                2 February 2015
                : 9
                : Suppl 1
                : S3
                Affiliations
                [1 ]Heilbrunn Department of Population and Family Health, Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University, 60 Haven Ave, New York, NY 10032 USA
                [2 ]University of New South Wales, High St, Kensington NSW 2052, Australia
                [3 ]United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Rue de Montbrillant 94, 1201 Geneva, Switzerland
                Article
                1752-1505-9-S1-S3
                10.1186/1752-1505-9-S1-S3
                4331815
                25798189
                7d4bc95e-9e76-4630-aed3-0a8ccd0cba7c
                Copyright © 2015 Casey et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd.

                This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver ( http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.

                History
                Categories
                Research

                Health & Social care
                reproductive health,humanitarian,refugees,burkina faso,democratic republic of the congo,south sudan

                Comments

                Comment on this article

                scite_

                Similar content141

                Cited by55

                Most referenced authors110