Adaptation of the Training Resource Package to Strengthen Preservice Family Planning Training for Nurses and Midwives in Tanzania and Uganda

Background: Tanzania and Uganda have high total fertility and maternal mortality rates, and low contraceptive prevalence rates. High-quality preservice family planning education for nurses and midwives can improve the quality of sexual and reproductive health care, thereby improving health outcomes.

Description of Intervention: In 2015, we worked with relevant stakeholders in Tanzania and Uganda through a series of surveys, assessments, and workshops to adapt modules of the Training Resource Package for Family Planning (TRP), an evidence-based global resource, to improve the quality of preservice family planning education for nurses and midwives. With support, a wide range of stakeholders, including policy makers, program managers, educators from nursing and midwifery training institutions, and representatives from professional associations, identified relevant TRP modules and adapted them to each country's context to inform and develop their own lesson plans in accordance with national policies, guidelines, and standardized preservice education templates.

Lessons Learned: Important lessons from the adaptation process include the following: (1) engage relevant ministries of health and education, professional associations, and regulatory councils at each step of the process to increase the acceptability and utility of the TRP; (2) use a context-specific process for adaptation of the TRP, as not one process will fit the needs of all countries; and (3) include nursing and midwifery educators in the adaptation process to create an established pool of trainers who can then cascade the TRP to other educators in their respective schools. Overall, participants in both countries expressed challenges with incorporating competency-based teaching methods into their curricula because they were unfamiliar with such approaches themselves and with reducing the extensive TRP content to fit within the time constraints for preservice education.

Conclusion: Adaptation of an evidence-based global family planning training resource in Tanzania and Uganda resulted in substantive changes to the curricula of the reproductive health preservice course unit that will support nurses and midwives to provide quality, rights-based family planning services.