Person-Centred Quality and Family Planning Continuation: What Does Quality Really Mean and for Whom?

Nadia Diamond-Smith , University of California, San Francisco
Beth Phillips, University of California, San Francisco
Aradhana Srivastava, Public Health Institute
Ginger Golub, IPA
Patience Afulani, University of California, San Francisco
May Sudhinaraset, University of California, Los Angeles

Quality of care of family planning provision has many dimensions, and measuring and understanding these different components is challenging. Furthermore, understanding which components are most important for women’s experiences and method continuation is essential for improving the quality of care provision. We use data from India and Kenya to explore the impact of different measures of quality (provider preference, provider involvement, and a scale of person centred care experiences) on method continuation. We also look at associations between the quality measures and discuss why different measures may be more salient in different contexts. We find that a woman’s person centered care experience is associated with continuation in Kenya, but not in India. In India, providers having a strong preference is associated with continuation. We argue that socio-cultural factors such as power dynamics and gender norms impact expectations, and need to be considered in interpreting and choosing quality measures.

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 Presented in Session 170. Measurement Approaches and Innovations in Family Planning