Increasing the accessibility, acceptability and use of the IUD in Gujarat, India

Despite the many advantages of the IUD as a method of family planning it generally suffers from unpopularity worldwide with the exception of a few countries like China Egypt Mexico and Turkey. The scenario in India is the same with less than two percent of currently women adopting the IUD as a method of contraception. The USAID-funded FRONTIERS Program of the Population Council in collaboration with the Department of Health & Family Welfare Government of Gujarat and the Center for Operations Research and Training Vadodara conducted an operations research study to test the hypothesis that improving the demand for the IUD and simultaneously strengthening the technical competencies and counseling skills of the providers use of the IUD use would increase. Knowledge of providers on the critical steps for providing IUD services increased significantly from 5 percent to 40 percent and the proportion of women having poor knowledge (score of <7 out of 29) decreased significantly from 81 to 47 percent. Demand generation activities and provision of good quality IUD services together with a supportive programmatic environment when carried out simultaneously showed increased acceptance of the IUD. The intervention could be easily integrated into the existing system. A sustained and coherent IEC campaign is required to remove myths; the IEC and counseling aids developed for the study have been well accepted by health care providers clients and national and state government officials. (Excerpts)