DOI: 10.3886/e197801v1
title: 2018 Ghana Health Facility Survey Abortion Knowledge

description: These data come from a
2018 study conducted in Ghana that uses Abortion Incidence Complications
Methodology (AICM) to explore abortion incidence nationally and within each of Ghana’s
three ecological zones. As one of the two surveys used for this study, the nationally
representative Health Facilities Survey (HFS) looks at health facilities that can
potentially provide abortion and/or post-abortion care, except for
community-based health planning and services facilities and non-governmental
organizations (NGOs). HFS interviews were conducted with a senior member of the
health facility staff who was knowledgeable about their facility’s provision of
abortion and/or post-abortion abortion care, including
obstetrician-gynecologists, general practitioners, physician’s assistants,
nurses, midwives, and administrators.

 

<br><br>Information collected from the HFS includes facility
type, location, number of beds available, services offered (labor and delivery,
PAC, and contraceptive counseling), equipment and methods available (including
methods used to provide PAC and family planning methods), number of patients
receiving abortions or post-abortion care, and respondent training, background,
knowledge, and perceptions, among others. The general information module
included questions on knowledge of abortion legality, perceptions surrounding
unintended pregnancy, and recommendations for reducing unsafe abortion. <br><br>The dataset available in this public release contains
a subset of the variables from the nationally representative HFS dataset.
To better correspond with the paper that explores knowledge of abortion
legality among providers[2],
we retained relevant variables from the dataset including respondent training
and background, respondent knowledge of abortion legality in Ghana, respondent perceptions
surrounding unintended pregnancy, respondent recommendations for reducing
unsafe abortion, and facility characteristics and information
description: We calculated weights as non-response-adjusted inverses of known selection probabilities for each sample facility. The main weight variable for the health facility surveys is finalweight. <br><br>In order to obtain accurate standard errors,
analyses should also account for the fact that the sample was stratified using
the stratum variable (stratid).
description: Response Rates: The Ghana HFS sampled 608 non-NGO facilities, of which 539 facilities completed an interview (88.7% response rate).
description: Presence of Common Scales: Not applicable
description: This heath facility survey was conducted in all 216 districts of Ghana’s three ecological zones: the Northern zone, the Middle zone, and the Coastal zone.<br>A list of all health facilities in the 216 districts that reported data through Ghana’s District Health Information Management System in 2017 was used to inform the study’s sampling universe. The sampling universe included all facility types in which PAC and/or abortion may have been offered, with the exception of community-based health planning and services (CHPS) facilities (which very rarely offer PAC/abortion services and non-governmental organizations (NGOs)) (n=21), whose caseload data we obtained directly. The final sampling frame contained 2,758 facilities.<br>A stratified two-stage sampling design with four strata was constructed to generate a nationally representative sample of health facilities. One stratum included all teaching and regional hospitals, sampled with certainty. The other three strata consisted of all remaining facility levels combined (district/university hospitals or polyclinics, other hospitals, health centres and midwife/ maternity homes). Among the other three strata, a two-stage stratified cluster sampling design was conducted, where 121 of the 216 districts in the country with probabilities proportionate to-size were first selected, and then facilities within sampled districts with probabilities inversely proportionate to size were selected. Facilities in Ghana’s Northern zone were selected at twice the rate of facilities in the Middle and Coastal zones to enable computation of representative estimates for each zone. <br>In total, we sampled 608 non-NGO facilities, of which 539 facilities completed an interview. 340 of these 539 facilities reported providing postabortion care, induced abortion care, or both, and comprised the analytic sample. <br>
description: Health facilities and staff that can potentially provide abortion and/or
post-abortion care, not including community-based health planning and services
facilities and non-governmental organizations (NGOs). Smallest Geographic Unit: Zone
description: computer-assisted personal interview (CAPI);