The use of family planning methods in an administrative district of Istanbul

Abstract

In Turkey, the first population and family planning law was accepted by the government in 1965, and this law was revised in 1982. This study was carried out to evaluate the family planning methods of women who applied to rural health centers of Kucukcekmece and were willing to use the health-care service and consultancy about birth control methods. The data of the study were gathered by means of an appropriate inquiry form and face-to-face interview with the women willing to use the family planning service between September 1998 and June 1999 at the health-care centers of Kucukcekmece of Istanbul. There were 699 women participants in the study. The last pregnancy of 27.2% (n = 175) of the women had been undesired; 86.8% of all the women who participated in the study declared that they did not desire any more children, but only 81.3% (n = 568) out of these were using a method to protect from pregnancy. The most frequently known (84.8%) and used (45.9%) method of the participants was an intrauterine device (IUD), and 80.8% of the women using an IUD wanted to continue using that method. A total of 223 women (39.3%) using any method protecting from pregnancy became pregnant. Approximately half (57.8%) of those occurred during the use of withdrawal. According to the findings of this study, the level of knowledge about family planning and the consequent behavior of the women within the fertile age group are better than the average of Turkey, but still not satisfactory.