ArticleBMJ sexual & reproductive health2022
Drug sellers' knowledge and practices, and client perspectives after an intervention to improve the quality of safe abortion care outside of formal clinics in Nigeria.
Article in BMJ sexual & reproductive health, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 5 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
5 citing papers in PubMed, 8 citations in OpenAlex.
- Inequities in safe abortion: women's care trajectories in Abuja and Lagos, Nigeria.BMC public health · 2025Article
- Quality of Information on Medication Abortion in Private Pharmacies: Results from a Mystery Client Study in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- Quality of care offered by health care retail markets for medication abortion self-management: Findings from states in Nigeria and India.PLOS global public health · 2025Article
- Quality of information offered to women by drug sellers providing medical abortion in Nigeria: Evidence from providers and their clients.Frontiers in global women's health · 2022Article
- Effectiveness of self-managed abortion during the COVID-19 pandemic: Results from a pooled analysis of two prospective, observational cohort studies in Nigeria.PLOS global public health · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
6 authors at 2 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundIn Nigeria, where abortion is legally restricted, individuals seek medication abortion drugs, including misoprostol, directly from pharmacies or drug sellers. However, knowledge of drug sellers or patent medicine vendors (PMVs) dispensation practices and women's experience with self-management is limited and research suggests poor quality of services. This study assesses the knowledge and practices of PMVs and women's experiences after a harm reduction intervention to improve the provision of medication abortion using misoprostol.
methodsWe conducted a retrospective descriptive analysis of anonymised logbook data collected from 141 Nigerian PMVs who provided misoprostol for abortion to 4924 clients between February 2015 and July 2018. We conducted a descriptive analysis of self-reported misoprostol dispensation practices with data from a cross-sectional survey of PMVs (n=120) from June 2016 to December 2018. We collected data on women's experience obtaining misoprostol from 37 PMVs through a cross-sectional survey of women (n=260) from 4-19 June 2018.
resultsFor clients where the misoprostol dose dispensed was recorded (n=3784), 86% of clients were given 800 μg or more misoprostol, pain medication (97%) and a contraceptive method (92%). Most clients with an outcome recorded in the logbook (n=4431) had a complete abortion (86%). Almost all women reported that they would return to the PMV for future services (99%).
conclusionsThe majority of PMVs dispensed misoprostol in appropriate dosages and provided clients with information on drug administration and methods of contraception. Interventions designed to improve PMVs' best practices around the provision of abortion care may help ensure the quality of services received by clients.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.