Reducing barriers to accessing fistula repair: Implementation research in Ebonyi

Population Council, in collaboration with EngenderHealth and the Fistula Care Plus (FC+) project, conducted implementation research to understand whether a comprehensive information, screening, and referral intervention reduces transportation, communication, and financial barriers to accessing preventive care, detection, and treatment of fistula in Katsina State. Following a baseline assessment, a multi-pronged intervention utilizing a fistula mobile hotline, transport voucher, and mass media tools to increase community awareness was implemented. The 12-month intervention convened an initial training of 46 primary health care (PHC) providers and 36 community agents to better identify and refer women with fistula. Fourteen PHC providers and 21 community agents received a refresher training following midline data collection, and an endline evaluation occurred following the intervention (Figure 1).