The Contraception Attitudes and Accessibility to Primary Care Centers for the Women in Reproductive Age (15-49 years old) During The Pandemic

Merve Koçak, Kaan Yurtcanlı, Halil İbrahim Özden, Pemra C. Unalan

Keywords: Contraception, attitude, accessibility, primary care

Background:

Family planning services which are delivered in Primary Care had been interrupted during the lockdowns, isolation, social distancing and the changing use of the primary care services. Family planning attitudes of the women affect their needs and behaviour to seek for contraception methods.

Research questions:

What about the Family planning attitudes, needs and accessibility to family planning methods which are delivered in Primary Care among the reproductive aged women (15-49 years) during extraordinary periods as the pandemic?

Method:

263 women are recruited by a systematic randomization among the women population of reproductive age (15-49 years) who are registered to 10 Primary Care Units responsible for a population of 35.000. In this descriptive study the data was collected with a questionnaire and the Family Planning Attitude Scale. In the analysis of the data categorical variables are analyzed by Chi-square, Kruskal Wallis and Mann Whitney-U and Spearman Correlation non parametric tests are used if the data is not distributed normally. P<0.05 is considered as statistically significant.

Results:

The mean age is 35.53±6.75, most common FP methods are condom(36.9%), withdrawal(29.6%) and IUD(11.8%) and 43.7% of women (n=115) stated no need to access the FP services. The future pregnancy plans of 33.4% of women are affected and 10% want to change their usual methods due to the pandemic. The rate of unplanned pregnancy is 3.4%, 7 women stated their need to change the FP method and 6 could not access during the pandemic . The need for access to FP methods during the pandemic period is significantly higher (p<0.05) for women with higher education level, working, single, higher income, non-pregnant/nullipar and using modern FP methods.

Conclusions:

Women who did not need FP methods during the pandemic were those with a negative FP attitude. Therefore, FP awareness and access to FP services should be expanded regardless of extraordinary situations.

Points for discussion:

Is there any similarity with your experience in your country if the FP services are delivered in primary care?

What are the limitations and the strengths of this study?

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