Results of a formative study
conducted in August – October 2022 under the coordination of CIDSR and CAPS, under the project: Grand Challenges Canada – Options Initiative, Canada.

In March 2022, the World Health Organization (WHO) released updated Guidelines for Abortion Care to provide quality abortion care based on current evidence and best practices to protect women’s health and prevent the more than 25 million unsafe abortions that occur each year worldwide. The consolidated guide includes recommendations for self-care and the use of telemedicine for medical abortion.
In July 2022, the Regional Reproductive Health Training Center (CIDSR – RTC) with the support of Grand Challenges Canada launched a formative study to assess the feasibility of implementing WHO guidelines on abortion in 5 EECA countries, including Kyrgyzstan.
METHODS: The formative research included: establishing working groups, informing national health authorities about the start of the project, reaching consensus on the objectives of the study, identifying stakeholders to be interviewed, translating/adapting and piloting the developed questionnaires; conducting face-to-face or online interviews, data collection and entry into a database, data processing, analysis and evaluation, and dissemination of the study results to key stakeholders.

A survey of 50 women from Bishkek, Osh, Jalal-Abad, Osh, Issyk-Kul and Chui oblasts was conducted in August-October 2022. More than two-thirds of the participants were women over 35 years old. The majority of respondents (80%) are from rural areas, a quarter have received above-average education, and the vast majority (90%) are married. Eighty-two percent of women reported knowing about medical abortion, of whom about half (49%) had previously undergone a medical abortion.

Read more about the results of the formative research in this document – Feasibility of providing medical abortion services through telemedicine in Kyrgyzstan.
Or scan the QR code for quick access