Family Planning Counseling and Use among Clients Seeking Abortion Services in Private Health Facilities in Kenya

Francis Obare, Population Council
Wilson Liambila, Population Council
Harriet Birungi, Population Council

This paper uses data from 125 observations of client-provider interactions during consultations and exit interviews to examine family planning service provision and use among clients seeking abortion services in 30 private health facilities in Kenya. Analysis entails simple frequencies, cross-tabulations with Chi-square tests, and estimation of multivariate logistic regression models. Results show that most clients seeking abortion services were young, educated and unmarried women. The proportion that had a previous abortion among those who had been pregnant more than once was also high (86%). Although 78% had used family planning, it was mostly short-acting methods. Providers counseled clients on family planning and offered a method in 79% and 47% of the consultations respectively with significant differences by study site; 36% of the clients accepted a method. The findings suggest that there is need to improve the provision of family planning services to clients seeking abortion services in private health facilities.