Reasons for not applying safe contraceptive methods in women
using withdrawal method in Amol city, 2003
M. Tofighi1, S. Amiraliacbary2
1Azad University, Sarymazandaran, Iran, 2Shaheed Beheshti,
Tehran, Iran
Background and purpose Withdrawal method is one of the most common contraceptive ways
(23%) nationwide. With regard to its relatively high failure rate (4-23%) with
unwanted pregnancies as well as resulted complications, this descriptive study
was conducted to find out the reasons for not applying safe contraceptive
methods.
Material and methods Subject population consisted of 379 married
women between 15 and 45 living in Amol city and using withdrawal method. The
subjects were selected through different stages with final randomization Data
were collected by a questionnaire in which personal, social, and obstetrical
history, and reasons for using withdrawal method as well as for not applying
other methods were documented. The validity and reliability of the tool were
determined by content Validity and test-re test method respectively. Pearson
coefficient of correlation as well as t- test and ANOVA were used for
quantitative and qualitative variables respectively.
Results Finding showed
that the mean age of subjects was between 28.1 + 6.4, who had used withdrawal
method at least for 3 months. Mean duration in using withdrawal method was 53.6 +
6.6 months. Health care workers were considered the most frequent source of
information (26.6%) and the main reasons for not applying safe contraceptive
methods included fear of side effects (28.2%), husband opposition (28.2%),
contraindication (9%) lactation (8.7%), 1and indifference to conception (7.7%). The most common reasons for applying withdrawal method were husband preference
(25.1%), having few complications (20.3%), its availability (19.5%) and being
safer than other methods (12.7%).
Conclusion It can be concluded that much more
effort should be made to devise and perform family planning programs correctly,
and training health care workers continuously and finally educating people
either by mass media or by professionals should be emphasized to encourage
applying safe contraceptive methods.
KEY WORDS Family planning methods, Safe
contraceptive methods, Traditional methods, Withdrawal method, Unwanted
pregnancy.