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Fertility awareness training; an evidence-based course for health professionals J. Knight, C. Pyper Department of Public Health, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK Introduction: Fertility Awareness Methods include all family planning methods based on the identification of the fertile time. This knowledge can be used to plan or avoid pregnancy. Fertility awareness methods depend on two key variables – the accurate identification of the fertile days of a woman’s menstrual cycle and the modification of sexual behaviour either to target intercourse to plan a pregnancy or to abstain from intercourse during the fertile time to avoid a pregnancy. The effectiveness of fertility awareness methods to avoid pregnancy depends on: the ability of couples to abstain from intercourse during the fertile time); or to use a barrier method consistently during the fertile time. Aim: To develop an evidence-based fertility awareness course that addresses the training requirements of the average reproductive or family planning health professional Design: Questionnaire evaluation and focus group Subjects: GPs practice nurses, midwives, family planning nurses undertaking a fertility awareness course. Methods: A six -day evidence based fertility awareness- training course has been established by fertility UK. The course is credit-rated 30 points at level 3 by the University of Greenwich. It is designed for health professionals to achieve competence as providers of education in fertility awareness and natural family planning for women/ couples at all stages of reproductive life. More recently there has been a demand for a shorter course that offers an overview of fertility awareness methods. A two-day course was therefore designed to cover the essential fertility awareness information health professionals require to support a client requesting a fertility awareness method of family planning. The participants experienced the two-day course as the initial two days of the six- day course. Their views are therefore valuable because they are aware of the content that was not covered during the first two days. Evaluation: The course was evaluated using a questionnaire and a participatory focus group Results: The results will describe the content of the two-day course and the views of the participants about what is essential information Conclusion: Training costs are increasing and it is important to reduce the length of training courses if possible. To do this it is important to clarify what is the essential information about fertility awareness methods of family planning required by the average family planning professional and separate it this training from the information required by health professionals who wish to have a specialist interest in the subject.
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