This MSI evidence brief summarises the recent learnings and practices that can help to create an enabling environment for the safe, supported self-management of medication abortion (MA) from pharmacies, an increasing pathway to care due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
With contributions from Ipas, IPPF, DKT and Options, this brief provides key recommendations for ensuring users of MA have access to information on how to safely self-manage MA products purchased from pharmacies and seek follow up care when needed.
This consolidation of evidence highlights the importance of interventions such as pictorial instructions, contact centres, websites and digital media, and the ways that information to pharmacy clients can be strengthened through community engagement. The brief also found that product labelling can be confusing and hard to decipher for low-literacy clients, and that hotlines and other digital platforms are essential for providing interactive responses to clients.
The briefing also includes links to existing resources that can support implementers.
