IMPROVING LONG ACTING AND REVERSIBLE CONTRACEPTIVES UPTAKE USING QUALITY IMPROVEMENT STRATEGY AT A SUB-COUNTY HOSPITAL KENYA

Introduction: Fertility rates in Sub-Saharan Africa is known to be high than any other region in the world with a Total Fertility Rate (TFR) of 5.1 children per woman. Kenya being one of the Sub-Saharan African country has equally high fertility rate of 3.9 children per woman. Despite the high rates, the uptake of Long acting and Reversible contraceptives (LARC) is low. It is on this basis that the study aimed at improving LARC uptake using continuous Quality improvement strategy (CQI). Objectives: To improve LARC uptake as a family planning method and to initiate and sustain postpartum LARC within 48 hours by Dec 2016 Methods: It was a hospital based cross sectional study which employed quantitative methods. Study population was all women of reproductive age who came to the facility to seek health services and were eligible for a family planning method. One hundred and fifty women were counselled, guided by the Operations Manual for Staff at Primary Health Care Centres established by WHO in 2008.The study was done in the months of August, September, October and November 2016. Data was collected and analyzed weekly. To analyze the rate of women receiving LARC among women of Reproductive Age, the Numerator was divided by the Denominator and then multiplied by 100 to obtain the rate which was then expressed as a percentage. The same was done to analyze the rate of women receiving LARC 48 hours post-delivery. Findings: The percentage of women using LARC increased gradually from 17% noted in baseline survey to about 83% by the end of the survey in November.Initiation of 48hours postpartum LARC was done and the practice picked gradually from October 2016 when it was initiated to the first week of December 2016 when the project ended with 67% of women taking a method 48hours after delivery. Conclusion and Recommendation: With C.Q.I much has been realized especially in care of clients and quality care is guaranteed to all citizens regard-less of their status in the society. It provides a chance to all staff to provide quality health care within their own capacity. Nevertheless, the number of staff should be adequate and all of them should be involved.