Pattern of Contraceptive Use Among Women Attending Family Planning Clinic in Kirkuk Governmental Hospitals, Kirkuk-Iraq

Contraceptive is a device which prevents women from becoming pregnant; it is a reversible method in preventing pregnancy. To show the type of contraceptive used by women attending family planning clinic in Kirkuk. This study was carried on 94 females attending family planning clinics in Kirkuk hospitals to determine types of contraceptives used by them. Among 94 women included in this study, the age of majority of women were ranging from 35 and above, the highest percentage had 2 parity, the commonest contraceptive used was condom followed by IUD, injection and tablets.


Introduction:
Family planning indicates the ability of couples to expect and achieve wished number of children through arranging interval between their births by means of contraception [1]. Fertility control is practiced through different parts of the world, its decision is made by couple, it is often of religious on rational convinces [2].Contraception are widely used by couples for different purposes, such as to limit the family size and to avoid child bearing which may have adverse effect on illness exists of pregnancy [3]. Several underdeveloped countries encourage contraceptive to stop undesired growth of population [4]. The acceptance of contraceptive method varies within and between societies and different religious group [5].
Among different methods of contraception used in different societies are oral pill which is widely used method, injection, female sterilization, male sterilization, IUDs and implants. The use of different contraceptives varies by educational status of women and their wealth status [6].
The rate of contraceptive user varies in different countries. It has been reported that overall 61% of currently married women in Bangladesh are using contraceptive, which are mainly oral pills followed by injection and others [6]. In Iraq, Abid et al., [7] carried out a study in Al-Sheikh Omar Health Centre in Baghdad on 539 women to show the reason for attending family planning clinic and which types of contraceptive preferred by them. They found that 65.3% of women preferred oral contraceptive pills; 56.2 % were refusing pregnancy due to economic difficulty and several medical reasons especially anemia. In Najaf province, Al-Asadi et al.
[8] studied sample of 120 women attending family planning devices, they reported that (32.5%) using IUD, 2.5% using Condom. The age of majority users were ranging from 30-40 years.

Methods:
A cross sectional study was carried out in Family planning clinics in Kirkuk hospitals

Statistical Analysis:
Statistical analysis was carried out using statistically available SOFTWARE (SPSS version 18) to show significant difference between different groups at (0.05).

Discussion:
This cross sectional study was performed to know the pattern of contraceptive used among women of different ages attending family planning clinics in Kirkuk. In the studied group women most of them who referred to PHC were multiparous who desired to use contraceptive to limit their family size and spaced child birth [6].
In this study the age of majority of women was between 25-30 years and followed by above 35 years using contraceptives,while women of age group 16-19 years old were few.
This finding is almost identical to that reported by Rahman [6], Abid et al [7] and Wellings et al. [9] reported that the highest rate of women using contraceptive were aging between late twenties and early thirties. This finding of this study is in contrast to that reported in Panama, which showed the highest age group was 17-25 [10].
Although the tablets user of women were low rate, while the majority were using condom. The low tablets user in this study probably due to lack of knowledge and related to educational status of population, it is efficient method of family planning when used correctly. Its advantages are very active regulating period, decreasing menstrual flow, decreasing probability of ectopic pregnancy protecting the women from certain diseases such as certain malignancy in addition to that it has effect on breast feeding. It is possible that women dislike pills or tablets, it may lead to headache, obesity, psychological distress, heart attacks and hypertension alternatively with rare breast pain [11; 12].

Conclusions and Recommendations:
From the finding of this study it is concluded that most attendants were aging between 35 and above and most women were had 2 parity. Condom was constituted the most commonly used method for contraception.