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Effectiveness of a girls’ empowerment programme on early childbearing, marriage and school dropout among adolescent girls in rural Zambia: study protocol for a cluster randomized trial

BACKGROUND: Adolescent pregnancies pose a risk to the young mothers and their babies. In Zambia, 35% of young girls in rural areas have given birth by the age of 18 years. Pregnancy rates are particularly high among out-of-school girls. Poverty, low enrolment in secondary school, myths and community...

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Autores principales: Sandøy, Ingvild Fossgard, Mudenda, Mweetwa, Zulu, Joseph, Munsaka, Ecloss, Blystad, Astrid, Makasa, Mpundu C., Mæstad, Ottar, Tungodden, Bertil, Jacobs, Choolwe, Kampata, Linda, Fylkesnes, Knut, Svanemyr, Joar, Moland, Karen Marie, Banda, Richard, Musonda, Patrick
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2016
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5148869/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27938375
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s13063-016-1682-9
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author Sandøy, Ingvild Fossgard
Mudenda, Mweetwa
Zulu, Joseph
Munsaka, Ecloss
Blystad, Astrid
Makasa, Mpundu C.
Mæstad, Ottar
Tungodden, Bertil
Jacobs, Choolwe
Kampata, Linda
Fylkesnes, Knut
Svanemyr, Joar
Moland, Karen Marie
Banda, Richard
Musonda, Patrick
author_facet Sandøy, Ingvild Fossgard
Mudenda, Mweetwa
Zulu, Joseph
Munsaka, Ecloss
Blystad, Astrid
Makasa, Mpundu C.
Mæstad, Ottar
Tungodden, Bertil
Jacobs, Choolwe
Kampata, Linda
Fylkesnes, Knut
Svanemyr, Joar
Moland, Karen Marie
Banda, Richard
Musonda, Patrick
author_sort Sandøy, Ingvild Fossgard
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Adolescent pregnancies pose a risk to the young mothers and their babies. In Zambia, 35% of young girls in rural areas have given birth by the age of 18 years. Pregnancy rates are particularly high among out-of-school girls. Poverty, low enrolment in secondary school, myths and community norms all contribute to early childbearing. This protocol describes a trial aiming to measure the effect on early childbearing rates in a rural Zambian context of (1) economic support to girls and their families, and (2) combining economic support with a community intervention to enhance knowledge about sexual and reproductive health and supportive community norms. METHODS/DESIGN: This cluster randomized controlled trial (CRCT) will have three arms. The clusters are rural schools with surrounding communities. Approximately 4900 girls in grade 7 in 2016 will be recruited from 157 schools in 12 districts. In one intervention arm, participating girls and their guardians will be offered cash transfers and payment of school fees. In the second intervention arm, there will be both economic support and a community intervention. The interventions will be implemented for approximately 2 years. The final survey will be 4.5 years after recruitment. The primary outcomes will be “incidence of births within 8 months of the end of the intervention period”, “incidence of births before girls’ 18th birthday” and “proportion of girls who sit for the grade 9 exam”. Final survey interviewers will be unaware of the intervention status of respondents. Analysis will be by intention-to-treat and adjusted for cluster design and confounders. Qualitative process evaluation will be conducted. DISCUSSION: This is the first CRCT to measure the effect of combining economic support with a community intervention to prevent adolescent childbearing in a low- or middle-income country. We have designed a programme that will be sustainable and feasible to scale up. The findings will be relevant for programmes for adolescent reproductive health in Zambia and similar contexts. TRIAL REGISTRATION: ISRCTN registry: ISRCTN12727868, (4 March 2016). ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s13063-016-1682-9) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
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spelling pubmed-51488692016-12-16 Effectiveness of a girls’ empowerment programme on early childbearing, marriage and school dropout among adolescent girls in rural Zambia: study protocol for a cluster randomized trial Sandøy, Ingvild Fossgard Mudenda, Mweetwa Zulu, Joseph Munsaka, Ecloss Blystad, Astrid Makasa, Mpundu C. Mæstad, Ottar Tungodden, Bertil Jacobs, Choolwe Kampata, Linda Fylkesnes, Knut Svanemyr, Joar Moland, Karen Marie Banda, Richard Musonda, Patrick Trials Study Protocol BACKGROUND: Adolescent pregnancies pose a risk to the young mothers and their babies. In Zambia, 35% of young girls in rural areas have given birth by the age of 18 years. Pregnancy rates are particularly high among out-of-school girls. Poverty, low enrolment in secondary school, myths and community norms all contribute to early childbearing. This protocol describes a trial aiming to measure the effect on early childbearing rates in a rural Zambian context of (1) economic support to girls and their families, and (2) combining economic support with a community intervention to enhance knowledge about sexual and reproductive health and supportive community norms. METHODS/DESIGN: This cluster randomized controlled trial (CRCT) will have three arms. The clusters are rural schools with surrounding communities. Approximately 4900 girls in grade 7 in 2016 will be recruited from 157 schools in 12 districts. In one intervention arm, participating girls and their guardians will be offered cash transfers and payment of school fees. In the second intervention arm, there will be both economic support and a community intervention. The interventions will be implemented for approximately 2 years. The final survey will be 4.5 years after recruitment. The primary outcomes will be “incidence of births within 8 months of the end of the intervention period”, “incidence of births before girls’ 18th birthday” and “proportion of girls who sit for the grade 9 exam”. Final survey interviewers will be unaware of the intervention status of respondents. Analysis will be by intention-to-treat and adjusted for cluster design and confounders. Qualitative process evaluation will be conducted. DISCUSSION: This is the first CRCT to measure the effect of combining economic support with a community intervention to prevent adolescent childbearing in a low- or middle-income country. We have designed a programme that will be sustainable and feasible to scale up. The findings will be relevant for programmes for adolescent reproductive health in Zambia and similar contexts. TRIAL REGISTRATION: ISRCTN registry: ISRCTN12727868, (4 March 2016). ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s13063-016-1682-9) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. BioMed Central 2016-12-09 /pmc/articles/PMC5148869/ /pubmed/27938375 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s13063-016-1682-9 Text en © The Author(s). 2016 Open AccessThis article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.
spellingShingle Study Protocol
Sandøy, Ingvild Fossgard
Mudenda, Mweetwa
Zulu, Joseph
Munsaka, Ecloss
Blystad, Astrid
Makasa, Mpundu C.
Mæstad, Ottar
Tungodden, Bertil
Jacobs, Choolwe
Kampata, Linda
Fylkesnes, Knut
Svanemyr, Joar
Moland, Karen Marie
Banda, Richard
Musonda, Patrick
Effectiveness of a girls’ empowerment programme on early childbearing, marriage and school dropout among adolescent girls in rural Zambia: study protocol for a cluster randomized trial
title Effectiveness of a girls’ empowerment programme on early childbearing, marriage and school dropout among adolescent girls in rural Zambia: study protocol for a cluster randomized trial
title_full Effectiveness of a girls’ empowerment programme on early childbearing, marriage and school dropout among adolescent girls in rural Zambia: study protocol for a cluster randomized trial
title_fullStr Effectiveness of a girls’ empowerment programme on early childbearing, marriage and school dropout among adolescent girls in rural Zambia: study protocol for a cluster randomized trial
title_full_unstemmed Effectiveness of a girls’ empowerment programme on early childbearing, marriage and school dropout among adolescent girls in rural Zambia: study protocol for a cluster randomized trial
title_short Effectiveness of a girls’ empowerment programme on early childbearing, marriage and school dropout among adolescent girls in rural Zambia: study protocol for a cluster randomized trial
title_sort effectiveness of a girls’ empowerment programme on early childbearing, marriage and school dropout among adolescent girls in rural zambia: study protocol for a cluster randomized trial
topic Study Protocol
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5148869/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27938375
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s13063-016-1682-9
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