Misbelieves About Intra Uterine Device (Iud) in Isfahan, Iran

Objective: despite intra uterine device (iud) has the advantage of providing long–term contraceptionand does not require daily attention, only %8 of iranian women use it. this study was conducted toenhance understanding of why women in the isfahan appear reluctant to consider iud as acontraceptive method.materials and methods: it was a qualitative study that was done in isfahan in may 2009. five urbanhealth centers of isfahan city were selected randomly. in each center by purposive opportunisticallysampling, interview was done with referring women of reproductive age that had never used iud withoutany contraindication by one interviewer. one to one semi–structured interviews were continued until alevel of information saturation was reached and no new themes were emerging. each woman's believeabout iud and her reasons for not using iud as a contraceptive method was asked by interviewer. alsoall participants were asked about the official (leaflets, health care professionals, books and school) andunofficial (personal narratives recounted by friends and relatives) sources of their information. eleveninterviews were conducted in total. key words in ideas of each woman were identified to develop majormisconceptions about iud use.results: fear of side effects of iud, religious believes, anxieties related to fitting of an iud, makedifficulty in intercourse and damage to fetus were the major misconceptions about iud use. religiousbelieves were the most impediment factor for iud use.conclusion: all of the items identified mirrored those found in other studies except the prominentworries about religious aspects of using iud that are new and need wider exploration.