Past and present in using contraceptive methods in South-West Romania

Reproductive health implies that people have the capability to reproduce and the freedom to decide if, when and how often to do so. Implicit in this last condition is the right of men and women to be informed and to have access to safe, effective, affordable and acceptable methods of family planning of their choice. In this context we are running a Grant, financially supported by the National Council of Scientific Research in Academic Education (contract CNCSIS 927/2009), aimed to evaluate the reproductive health quality in south-western Romania. During the pilot survey, we interviewed 350 people, equally distributed by sex, age groups and instruction level, about knowing and using contraceptive methods (CM). Best known CM are condoms (92.6%), the calendar method (85.7%) and pills (85.6%), less known - cervical cap (18%). Women are more informed (p<0.01) than men. The best informed is the 25-29 age group A percentage of 75.6% of the subjects have used CM. Condoms, pills and calendar method are largely used. Nowadays the calendar method is three times less used than during the communist government, when it was the most accessible CM. Last three months 55.5% of the group did not use CM in order to get children or because of infertility, pregnancy, missing of a sexual partner, lack of information (the last one - frequently found in less instructed group, p<0.05). Doctors, friends and parents are mentioned as the most reliable sources of information regarding contraception. The need to improve sexual-reproductive education especially for young people is getting obvious.