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Purpose Engaging trusted care providers and empowering them with information and skills about abortion is a critical opportunity to improve coordination of care for women seeking abortion, if and when these services are needed. Description Provide, a nonprofit that works in partnership with health and social service providers to build a health system that is equipped to respond to women's health care needs around abortion, launched a referrals training program in 2013. To assess the effectiveness of this training program, we conducted an evaluation of satisfaction with training and the impact of the intervention on provider knowledge of safety of abortion, self-efficacy to provide abortion referrals, and intention to provide pregnancy options counseling and referrals in the future. Assessment Approximately 90% of participants were "very satisfied" with their training experience. Results show significant increase in intention to provide non-judgmental pregnancy options counseling and referrals for abortion care after participants went through training. Post-training, significantly more reported that they would present all pregnancy options without judgment or bias (94 vs. 82%, p

Purpose Engaging trusted care providers and empowering them with information and skills about abortion is a critical opportunity to improve coordination of care for women seeking abortion, if and when these services are needed. Description Provide, a nonprofit that works in partnership with health and social service providers to build a health system that is equipped to respond to women's health care needs around abortion, launched a referrals training program in 2013. To assess the effectiveness of this training program, we conducted an evaluation of satisfaction with training and the impact of the intervention on provider knowledge of safety of abortion, self-efficacy to provide abortion referrals, and intention to provide pregnancy options counseling and referrals in the future. Assessment Approximately 90% of participants were 'very satisfied' with their training experience. Results show significant increase in intention to provide non-judgmental pregnancy options counseling and referrals for abortion care after participants went through training. Post-training, significantly more reported that they would present all pregnancy options without judgment or bias (94 vs. 82%, p < .0001), provide a referral for abortion care if needed (80 vs. 50%, p < .0001), and follow-up with the client (71 vs. 39%, p < .0001). Further, more also reported they would refer a client for prenatal care if the client requested it (78 vs. 67%, p < .0001). Conclusion Our results suggest that abortion referrals training hold potential to build the capacity of health and social service providers' ability to meet client needs related to pregnancy and could be implemented at a larger scale., Author(s): Jenny O'Donnell [sup.1] , Kelsey Holt [sup.2] , Kristin Nobel [sup.1] , Melanie Zurek [sup.1] Author Affiliations: (Aff1) Provide, , PO Box 410164, 02141, Cambridge, MA, USA (Aff2) 0000 [...]

The stigma surrounding abortion in the United States commonly permeates the experience of both those seeking this health service as well as those engaged in its provision. Annually there are approximately 1.2 million abortions performed in the United States; despite that existing research shows that abortion services are highly utilized, women rarely disclose their use of these services. In 2005 only 1787 facilities that offer abortion services remained, a drop of almost 40 percent since 1982 (Jones, Zolna, Henshaw, & Finer, 2008). While it has been acknowledged that all professionals working in abortion are labeled to some degree as different, no published research has explored stigmatization as a process experienced by the range of individuals that comprise the abortion-providing workforce in the USA. Using qualitative data from a group of healthcare professionals doing abortion work in a Western state, this study begins to fill that gap, providing evidence of how the experience of stigma can vary and is managed within interactions in the workplace, in professional circles, among family and friends, and among strangers. The analysis shows that the experience of stigma for those providing abortion care is not a static or fixed loss of status. It is a dynamic situation in which those vulnerable to stigmatization can avoid, resist, or transform the stigma that would attach to them by varying degrees within selective contexts., (Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)