PURPOSE: to evaluate the contraceptive methods adopted by the public health system of Maringá County, Paraná, regarding the orientations for using them, indications, contraindications and reasons for interrupting these methods, as well as the profile of the female users. METHODS: transversal descriptive study, performed through 284 home interviews with women selected from the 62 groups of the Family Health Program, after their free and informed consent, and after the questionnaire had been approved by the Ethics in Research Committee involving human beings of the State University of Maringá (Universidade Estadual de Maringá - UEM). Before applying the questionnaires, they were pretested, focusing on the following sections: characterization of the interviewee, socioeconomical factors and contraceptive methods. Results were analyzed using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences software 12.0 version. RESULTS: most women were white, married, between 35 and 49 years old, with high school education, working without salary, and from D and E economical classes. Of them, 22.5% were smokers and 4.9% alcohol users. Contraceptive pills were adopted by 50.3% of the women; condom by 28.1% and tubal ligature by 32%, following, in general, the health professional orientation. Reasons for interrupting the contraceptive methods were the wish to get pregnant, preference for a permanent method, and also because of the side effects of the pill. Smoking was the most prevalent risk factor for pill use. Only 35.9% of the interviewed women started using the pill after a previous medical visit, and almost in the same proportion, 33.6%, without visit before starting to use it. CONCLUSIONS: it was observed that the indications of the contraceptive method to be used, and the orientations accomplished by the health professionals were satisfactory, despite the high levels of tubal ligature and the detection of relative contraindications for pill users with more than 5 years of use.
Contraception; Women's health; Reproductive medicine; Family planning services
