Increasing use of the IUD through community and clinic based education activities in rural Honduras.

Women in rural areas of Honduras are less likely to use the IUD than any other method. In 2001 the contraceptive prevalence rate in urban areas was 70% but only 57% in rural areas. An even larger proportionate discrepancy was found for the IUD -in urban areas it was used by 15 percent of married women and only five percent in rural areas. Over the last few years the Honduran Ministry of Health has conducted extensive IUD training programs for providers to try to increase its availability in rural and semi-rural areas but studies have shown that clients and community members continue to have little information on this method. This document presents the results of an operations research project implemented by the MOH in Honduras with the technical and administrative assistance from the Population Councils Frontiers in Reproductive Health (FRONTIERS) Program ASHONPLAFA and EngenderHealth and funding from USAID. This project tested a strategy to inform communities about the availability of the IUD in nearby health centers and about the methods most salient attributes. To evaluate the strategys effect on increasing knowledge about and use of the IUD an experimental pretest/post-test design with a control group was used in which 41 health centers in 18 municipalities were randomly assigned to either the experimental or control group.