ABSTRACT
PIP: Documents nurse midwives' role in providing contraceptive and counseling services to young people who are most at risk for unwanted pregnancy. Data studied is from a clinic which operates during the late afternoon and early evening in an urban hospital. A physician is responsible for the overall supervision of the clinic, but nurse midwives play a major role in patient care and provision of services. The data compares nurse midwives and physicians in the clinic with regard to patient load, characteristics, contraceptive methods chosen, revisit patterns, and problems. Patients of both nurse midwives and physicians had similar characteristics and past histories. Findings show that nurse midwives often carry the largest share of the patient load and have maintained slightly higher revisit rates and similar oral contraceptive continuation rates, in comparison with physicians. Most important, patients of nurse midwives are no more likely than those of physicians to report method related problems. The lack of significant differences is regarded as encouraging. This suggests that nurse midwives can play a valuable role in the increasing number of counseling and contraceptive programs for young people.^ieng
