About the Project - SOGC VCop

About Us

Canadian Abortion Providers Support – Communauté de pratique Canadienne sur l’avortement (CAPS-CPCA) is a virtual community of practice for clinicians and non-clinicians who are interested in providing and supporting medication abortion. CAPS-CPCA was initiated by the Contraception and Abortion Research Team-Groupe de recherche sur l'avortement et la contraception (CART-GRAC) at the University of British Columbia. In 2017, the first version of the CAPS-CPCA website was released in a subscription-based format to facilitate communications on best practices among medication abortion providers. In 2023, in response to changes in the regulatory landscape and clinical guidelines of medication abortion, CART-GRAC and the Society of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists of Canada worked together to develop the second generation of CAPS-CPCA, which is publicly available and targets both healthcare providers and allied helping professionals such as community workers, social workers, doulas and counsellors. The second generation of CAPS-CPCA is the joint effort of many individuals and organizations, including:

Website developer: Department of Computing Science, University of Alberta
Graphic designer: Pinwheel Communication Design (www.pinwheeldesign.ca)
Translator: Marianne Manuge
Content reviewer: Andrea Houle, Anna Sherlock, Ashleigh McCullagh-Cheung, Coral Maloney, David Ram, Inna Genkin, Lyndsay Palsson, Mélina Castonguay, Nnamdi Ezugwu, Rahima Alani, Sarah Anderson, Vallée Carol-Anne

We are also grateful for the financial support by Health Canada. The views expressed herein do not necessarily represent the views of Health Canada. Lastly, we would like to acknowledge the input and support from our partnering physicians, nurse practitioners, midwives and pharmacists, and from our collaborating organizations:

Content Development Process

Canadian Abortion Provider Support – Communauté de pratique Canadienne sur l’avortement (CAPS-CPCA) is a web-based resource for clinicians and non-clinicians who are interested in providing and supporting medication abortion. CAPS-CPCA was initiated by the Contraception and Abortion Research Team-Groupe de recherche sur l'avortement et la contraception (CART-GRAC) and funded by Health Canada.

The content in this website was co-developed by the CAPS-CPCA development team and providers of medication abortion across Canada. Through this co-development process, we attempted to capture the most common guidelines and practices and, whenever possible, explain the variation in these practices. Nevertheless, we acknowledge that the information we present here may differ from your knowledge and experiences.

Please write to us at ubcfmpr-gcaps@mail.ubc.ca if you have any feedback.

The content presented in this website was updated as of November 2023 and developed through the three phases described below:

Phase 1: Resource curation

More than 200 written documents on medication abortion such as protocols, checklists, guidelines, toolkits, manuals, instructions and factsheets were identified and retrieved by the content team through collaboration with various healthcare and advocacy organizations in Canada such as the Society of Obstetricians and Gynecologists of Canada (SOGC), National Federation of Abortion Canada, Canadian Pharmacists Association an Action Canada for Sexual Health & Rights.
The title and content of these documents were then screened to narrow down the relevant resources into a list of over 60 documents. These documents were included if they (1) discuss any aspects of medication abortion services and care, (2) are intended for healthcare providers such as physicians, nurse practitioners, pharmacists, and midwives, social workers and birth attendants, and (3) are applicable to Canadian context.
Of 60 documents, 30 documents were deemed important and then reviewed and updated by 10 medication abortion providers (family and OB/GYN physicians, nurse practitioners, midwives and pharmacists) to ensure that the most recent guidelines and practices are captured.

Phase 2: Content writing

The scope and skeletal framework of the online content were brainstormed and developed in consultation with the collaborating partners and medication abortion providers.
The online content was first drafted by the content team through summarizing and synthesizing the information from the 60 documents.
The first draft was reviewed by the 10 medication abortion providers, who provided feedback and suggestions to improve the accuracy, consistency and clarity of the content. The feedback and suggestions were then compiled, reviewed and incorporated by the content team. Discrepancies in the suggestions and comments were discussed and clarified. These suggestions and feedback were then incorporated to revise the first draft into the second draft.
The second draft was reviewed by another 2 MA providers and their feedback and suggestions were reviewed and incorporated to create the third draft.
The third draft was reviewed and revised by the SOGC, and then finalized for phase 3.

Phase 3: Content migration and testing

The online content developed in the Phase 2 was migrated to the CAPS-CPCA webpages.
These webpages were then shared with additional 30 medication abortion providers with diverse background to test for inclusive and destigmatizing languages and for webpages’ functionality, navigation, look-and-feel, and content.
Suggestions from users were incorporated to revise both the content and visual elements of the webpages.

Bibliography

The content in this website was developed based on the information provided in the following references. Please note that the content in this website was updated as of November 2023 and this reference list may not capture the most recent guidelines, checklists and tools published after this date.