Increasing client participation in family planning consultations : 'smart patient' coaching in Indonesia

This is a report of the study 'Operations research: impact of client communication training on client participation and contraceptive continuation in Indonesia'. Family planning clients were given a brief training session to improve their communication skills before seeing a service provider. The findings show that women agreed that coaching helped them to gain confidence, ask more questions and express their concerns. Providers were more likely to tailor information to individual needs. Eight months following the intervention, clients were more likely to continue to use a contraceptive method