Nurse practitioner medication abortion providers in Canada: results from a national survey

In 2017, nurse practitioners (NPs) became the first non-physician healthcare providers authorised to independently provide medication abortion (MA) in Canada. We aimed to report on demographic and clinical characteristics of NPs providing mifepristone/misoprostol MA in Canada and to identify context-specific barriers and enablers to NP provision of mifepristone/misoprostol MA in Canada among MA providers and non-providers.

From August 2020 to February 2021, we invited Canadian NPs to complete a national, web-based, bilingual (English/French) survey. The survey was distributed through national and provincial nursing associations and national abortion health professional organisations. We collected demographic and clinical care characteristics and present descriptive statistics and bivariate analyses to compare the experiences of NP providers and non-providers of MA.

The 181 respondents represented all Canadian provinces and territories. Sixty-five NPs (36%) had provided MA at the time of the survey and 116 (64%) had not. Nearly half (47%) of respondents worked in rural or remote communities and 81% in primary care clinics. Significant barriers impacting non-providers' abilities to provide MA included limited proximity to a pharmacy that dispensed mifepristone/misoprostol, few experienced abortion providers in their community of practice, poor access to procedural abortion services, policy restrictions in NPs' places of employment, and no access to clinical mentorship. Some 98% of NPs providing MA services had never encountered anti-choice protest activity.

NPs appear prepared and able to provide MA, yet barriers remain, particularly for NPs in smaller, lower-resourced communities. Our findings inform the development of supports for NPs in this new practice to improve abortion access in Canada.