An 18-month program for low-income adolescent mothers, delivered by nurse educators and a social worker, that aims to reduce rapid repeat pregnancy and promote healthy birth spacing.
The Teen Options to Prevent Pregnancy (TOPP) program was developed by OhioHealth, a large faith-based health system in Columbus, Ohio, and enrolled adolescent mothers from seven outpatient clinics and five hospital postpartum units serving seven counties in Central Ohio. TOPP’s main goal is to reduce rapid repeat pregnancy and promote healthy birth spacing among adolescent mothers. The program, delivered by nurse educators and a social worker over an 18-month period, includes the following recommended components:
- Monthly one-on-one motivational interviewing sessions delivered by a nurse educator by telephone to help the young mothers identify a birth control plan that meets their needs;
- Free transportation to a local health care provider or a TOPP clinic to receive contraceptive services (e.g., LARCs);
- At least one in-person visit from the nurse educator in the young mother’s home or a community setting; and
- Access to a program social worker who, based on an initial psychosocial assessment of the participating mother and subsequent identification of service needs by the nurse educators, could refer her to appropriate support services.
The program developers emphasize two aspects of program implementation as essential to successful delivery of the above components: (i) initial training and rigorous ongoing coaching of the nurse educators in motivational interviewing, and (ii) the nurses’ discussion of both contraceptive and non-contraceptive topics with the adolescent mothers. The study reports do not provide information on the program’s cost.
Click here for the Teen Options to Prevent Pregnancy website.