Contraceptive use patterns among 9394 women applying to a
metropolitan FP center in Turkey
B. Dilbaz, E. Caliskan, M. Tugral, D. Yildirim, Y. Tasci,
A. Haberal
Ministery of Health Ankara Etlik Maternity and Women’s Health
Teaching and Research Hospital, Ankara, Turkey
Objective To evaluate the contraceptive use pattern of
9394 women applying to a metropolitan FP center between 2000 and 2005
Design and methods Demographic variables and method of
choice of all women applying to FP Center is recorded using a standart patient
registration programme. The data is analyzed statistically.
Results The mean age of the patient group was 33.5 ±7.4
(R:17-50), the mean number of living children was 2.8±0.9 (R=0-5), 19.7% were
nulliparous, and 2% had >5 deliveries. Almost 33 % did not experience
voluntary termination of pregnancy while the rest had one or more termination
and 77.6% had no spontaneous abortion. Whilst 6.9% were illiterate, 75% had
primary school education. The most widely used method was IUD (54.4%) followed
by withdrawal 29.9%. Oral contraceptive use was only 2.5% even lower than tubal
ligation which is 4.1%. Overall hormonal method use was merely 5.4%. Monthly
injections constituted 1.4% whilst implant use was 1.1%. Vasectomy was prefered
in 0.3% of our population and condom use for contraception was almost nil. Of
all, 57.5% wanted to have no more children, 17.6 % did not know whether they
wanted to have more children, 17.3% were hesitant, whilst 4.6% wanted children
within the next 2 years and 3% after 2 years. In spite of this high number of
women who wanted to have no more children and the fact that 96.5 % wanted to
have sterilization at one stage the rate of female and male sterilization was
very low.
Conclusion The most widely used method was IUD in our
patient group and traditional method use was still very high -the second most
widely used method of contraception. Counselling should be strenghtened in order
to increase the use of modern methods and women who do not have any more
children should be counselled thoroughly about sterilization.