Improving access and quality of primary healthcare through women and adolescents' user committees: A mixed-methods case study in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Background: Patient engagement is seen as a fundamental strategy for achieving quality patient-centred care, especially in community-based primary healthcare. Despite growing interest in patient engagement in Sub-Saharan Africa, few patient engagement initiatives have been identified, and those often are limited to lower levels of engagement, in participation in health research or in health system improvement. With the aim of giving a voice to under-represented community groups in healthcare governance, the Access to Health services in Kinshasa (ASSK) project supported the implementation of primary health services user committees in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, designed to enable the representation of two user groups with specific unmet sexual and reproductive health (SRH) needs: women and adolescents.