DKT DRC Reaches Youth through Drugstore Program

DKT DRC Reaches Youth through Drugstore Program

09
Feb 24

Drugstore Program

Bernard is a pharmacist at Pharmacie La Grande located in Kingabwa, a youth populated neighborhood in Kinshasa with a high percentage of youth. Decorated in DKT’s red and white brand colors and Batela Lobi Na Yo (BLNY) signage, Pharmacy la Grande is one of the main pharmacies in the neighborhood where pharmacists provide and share information on contraception. “Thanks to DKT’s Drugstore program, I can now freely talk about sex without taboo, which is something I couldn’t do before,” Bernard says with a smile. Like many other pharmacists, Bernard is part of DKT DRC’s Batela Lobi Na Yo (“protect your future”) Drugstore program, funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF). The program is designed to train pharmacists in pharmacies that are part of the BLNY network to improve their knowledge of family planning and to help them better assist clients in choosing modern contraceptive methods available in their pharmacies.

Abbreviations:

• BLNY: Batela Lobi Na Yo
• YA: Youth Ambassador
• RH: Reproductive Health
• Bees: Mobile Nurses trained in RH/Family Planning
• OTC: Over-the-counter
• FP: Family Planning

Introduction

In DRC, approximately 600,000 adolescent girls give birth each year and 83% of these pregnancies are unintended. Pharmacies

have become the main source of information and access to contraception, but young people rarely feel welcomed within them. Since the launch of this program, DKT DRC has trained 1,123 BLNY pharmacies equipped to welcome and serve youth.

Since 2018, DKT DRC has used a human-centered approach to train pharmacists and their employees in the provinces of Kinshasa, Kongo Central and Kwango. DKT used retail media strategy to transform pharmacies across DRC into the DKT Batela Lobi Na Yo pharmacy network – safe and inviting places where youth can learn about and access contraception.

The program has specific objectives:

• Training and capacity building of pharmacists
• Raising awareness and create demand
• Improving the visibility of pharmacies
• Promoting sustainability with a direct monitoring model
• Measuring impact in the community

Mystery client study

DKT used 298 BLNY pharmacies as a sampling frame and drew 75 from this list. A group of young ambassadors (YAs), ages 19 to 26, were used as mystery clients and were given a scenario in which they would enter the selected pharmacies to request contraception, without mentioning a specific or preferred method.

Of the 75 pharmacies visited, 67 (89.3%) recommended at least one modern contraceptive method to young clients. Of the 8 pharmacists who refused to provide a method to mystery clients, 4 cited the age of the customer as reason for refusal, adding comments such as future health risks. Overall, 78.7% of pharmacies visited were able to recommend 1 or 2 modern contraceptive methods to mystery clients, but only 10.6% were able to recommend 3 or more.

The evaluation rated providers’ knowledge, quality of the information provided, and quality of the explanations. Provider knowledge scores were rated as “Excellent,” “Fair,” “Poor” and “Very Poor.