Population policies and contraception use behavior: Tehran Lipid and Glucose Study

As fertilization preventing behaviors is one of the most important components of demographic trends, population policies predominantly focuses on family planning. Due to the reduction in population growth of Iran, population policies have been changed somewhat. This study was conducted to explore the impact of changes in population policy approach on the trend of contraceptive methods usage in recent 10 years.
In this population-based cross-sectional study, the prevalence of different contraceptive methods usage was evaluated in four years of 1381, 1384, 1387 and 1390 using the collected data through Tehran Lipid and Glucose study (TLGS).
The results showed that the use of the modern contraception and the traditional contraception methods have been increased and decreased across the time, respectively. Childbirth tendency were slowly increasing among women younger than 35 years. At the same time the use of male methods, especially condoms had a regular increasing trend, while female methods, including IUD, pills, injection had a decreasing trend. In this respect, at the end of decade (Phase 4), the prevalence of using male contraceptive methods, especially condom, was more than female methods which had no significant association with women’s educational level or parity (p=0.15 and P=0.08, respectively).
It seems that the changes of population policy have been gradually caused a reduction in modern contraceptive methods usage. Understanding about these trends could help the health care policy makers to predict, design and implement the future decisions, and would provide valuable strategies to determine accurate health policies in the country.