Why Iranian married women use withdrawal instead of oral contraceptives? A qualitative study from Iran

BMC Public Health

Research Article

Anoushiravan Kazemnejad¹  Alireza Hidarnia²  Parvin Rahnama²  Farkhondeh Amin Shokravi²  Ali Montazeri³  Deborah Oakley⁴ 

[1] Department of Biostatistics, Tarbiat Modares University, Tehran, Iran;Department of Health Education, Tarbiat Modares University, Tehran, Iran;Department of Mental Health, Iranian Institute for Health Sciences Research, ACECR, Tehran, Iran;School of Nursing, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA;

关键词: Married Woman;    Contraceptive Method;    Unintended Pregnancy;    Unwanted Pregnancy;    Family Planning Program;   

DOI  :  10.1186/1471-2458-10-289

 received in 2009-10-13, accepted in 2010-05-28,  发布年份 2010

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundWithdrawal as a method of birth control is still used in Iran. The aim of this study was to explore married women's perspectives and attitudes on withdrawal use instead of oral contraceptive (OC) in Tehran, Iran.MethodsThis was a qualitative study. Participants were 50 married women, not currently pregnant, not desiring pregnancy and who had been using withdrawal for contraception. Face-to face interviews were conducted to collect data. Content analysis was performed to analyze the data.ResultsFour major themes were extracted from the interviews: advantages, disadvantages, barriers for OC use, and husband-related factors. Advantages of withdrawal use were identified as: easy to use, convenient, ease of access, natural. Even those participants who had experienced unwanted pregnancy while using withdrawal, relied on withdrawal as their contraceptive method. Disadvantages of OC included concerns about side effects. Barriers related to use of OC included the need for medical advice, vaginal examination and daily use. Husband-related factors included: the husband wanted to be the primary decision maker on the number of children and that he preferred withdrawal.ConclusionHealth providers should address misunderstandings that exist about OC and highlight the non-contraceptive health benefits of OC to balance the information provided for women. We suggest that not only women but also their spouses be advised in family planning programs.

【 授权许可】

Unknown   
© Rahnama et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. 2010. This article is published under license to BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.