Background: Egypt’s family planning programs have followed a similarly unsteady course. Debated by Egyptian social scientists since the 1930s, Egypt’s high population growth became widely viewed as an acute problem in the 1960s, when the government acknowledged the serious economic and social problems associated with it.
Objectives: Analyzing the factors associated with contraceptive methods discontinuation among women aged 15- 49 years and contraceptive use dynamics in the study area. We also examined the effect of counseling on percent of continuation.
Study design: A cross sectional survey was carried out among the eligible women.
Study setting: The study areas included Assiut Governorate family planning units in different places providing contraceptive methods.
Study population: One thousand and ten women in reproductive age from 15-49 who used contraceptive methods once or more, has one child or more were included. Study tools: An interview questionnaire was constructed including data about used contraceptive methods, discontinuation and its causes, failure and its fate. We asked about ten steps of counseling. Data entry after revising and editing was done via EXCEL software while data analysis was carried out via SPSS program version 11.
Results: the most commonly used modern method was IUD (43.0%). The results revealed that 69.7% of methods had been stopped within 2 years of starting for various reasons. The percent of discontinuation decreased significantly with increasing age. Discontinuation was the lowest when there were four or more living children and increased significantly by decreasing number of living children. It decreased significantly with increasing the number of sons. As regards infant deaths; discontinuation was insignificant among those who did not experience infant deaths, and presence of one and two deaths respectively. University graduated women showed least discontinuation level. As regards causes of discontinuations; side effects and health concerns were the most common reason of discontinuation. Most of method failure as expressed by pregnancy ended in live births. The results indicated that a higher score on counseling was significantly associated with continuation.
Conclusion: Counseling should emphasize the possibility of side effects, stressing the fact that most will be transient, and the need to identify a backup method. Follow-up visits should be scheduled for 1 to 2 months after a prescription is written.