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Unplanned
Pregnancy
Education in Nursing
Why Nursing Education?
Many nurses do not have access to education on unintended
pregnancy and abortion care, especially nurses living in states
where abortion is highly stigmatized. This severely reduces
our health care system’s ability to respond to the needs of
thousands of pregnant women. It leads to staff shortages at
family planning and abortion clinics and can prevent hospitals
from being able to provide abortion care.
Provide, and the Provide-based ROE Consortium for Nursing,
has been working on integrating unintended pregnancy care
into nursing education and practice for 12 years. Our current
focus is piloting a newly developed nursing curriculum tool.
Check out this resource and let us know how you are using it
and how we can improve it.
By developing the expectation that all nurses will be able to
care for women facing unintended pregnancy, and by creating
curriculum resources that build that competency, we are
working towards a future where no nurse is unprepared to
care for unintended pregnancy. Towards a future in which
all nurses feel competent, supported, and able. And towards
a future where women are supported by the health care
providers they trust, in whatever decisions they make.
Modules
Professional Ethics (PE)
Postpartum Contraception (PPC)
Public Health (PH)
Options Counseling (OC)
Quality and Safety (QS)
Global Health (GH)
EVERYONE HAS A ROLE
http://provideaccess.org/nursingcurriculum/
Provide works to make sure that women have access to abortion, especially those living in low-resource rural and Southern
communities. Our work is rooted in the on-the-ground realities of women’s lives and of the systems and resources that are
available to them. It is guided by our conviction that everyone has a role to play in supporting women’s access to abortion.
The Pilot Curriculum
Through a national Delphi study, Essential Competencies in Unintended Pregnancy Prevention and Care (UPPC) for
Nursing Education (Hewitt, C. and Cappiello, J., 2015), 85 nursing experts in UPPC reached consensus on 27 core
educational competencies for nursing education, which provide a framework for this curriculum.
The modules help students hone their skills around the UPPC competencies. In the modules, students are given
patient scenarios that require in-depth analysis to resolve the presented case with the highest quality of patient
care. In addition, an orientation tools and self-assessment tools help the student learn and test their understanding
before and after completing the module. Each module also includes faculty guides and teaching tips.
Options Counseling Module
Patient Scenario
The Patient
Ivy is 16 years old and her last menstrual period was 11 weeks ago. Sometimes she uses oral contraceptives and sometimes condoms,
but neither consistently. She has never been pregnant before.
What Happened
Ivy and her mother, Jody, come into the health center to confirm the pregnancy test Ivy took at home. While Ivy is in the bathroom, Jody
reveals to the nurse that she was 17 years old when she gave birth to Ivy, and she knows how challenging it can be to be a young mother.
She does not want this life for Ivy and would like the nurse to focus on abortion or adoption options if the test comes back positive.
Jody waits in the waiting room and when Ivy returns from the bathroom the nurse leaves to run the test. It is positive. Ivy and the nurse are
alone together in the exam room.
Nurse: Ivy, your pregnancy test is positive. This means that you are pregnant.
Ivy: That’s what I thought.
Nurse: How are you feeling about this? Many women have mixed feelings about a pregnancy.
Ivy: I think Brian would be a great dad. Maybe having a baby would be great for us, bring us closer. I don’t know.
Nurse: Tell me more about what you are thinking. (Pause. Ivy does not respond). Ivy, this is an important decision for you and sometimes it
can be helpful to get support and talk it through with family or friends. Would you like me to ask your mother to come in here to be with you?
Ivy: Yes.
The nurse leaves and returns with Jody who sits next to Ivy.
Nurse: Ivy, you have several options to consider. You could choose to continue the pregnancy and parent the child, you could chose to
have an abortion, or you could continue the pregnancy and plan an adoption.
Ivy: But doesn’t having an abortion mean I can’t have kids later? What if this is my only chance to be a mom?
Nurse: Since abortion became legal in the U.S. in the early 1970s, researchers have studied the safety and risks of abortion. Abortion is a
very safe procedure and should pose no future problems for you. No matter what you chose to do, making a decision like this is often very
difficult even when you know what the right choice for you is.
Jody: Thanks so much. Depending on what Ivy decides to do, do you perform these procedures here, or does Ivy need to make an
appointment somewhere else?
Discussion
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While Ivy is in the bathroom, what can the nurse say to her mother Jody?
What is non-directive, patient-centered options counseling?
How can the nurse explain the safety of abortion?
How can the nurse make an effective referral?