A Survey Study on Attitudes of Thai Women in Accepting Norplant® Implants and Norplant-2® Implants

Abstract

Norplant^® implants, consisting of 6 capsules of silastic, is a method of long-acting contraception effective for 5 years; while Norplant-2^® implants, consisting of 2 capsules of silastic, is effective for 3 years. During January 1988 and August 1990, the Institute of Health Research, Chulalongkorn University, conducted a survey study of the attitudes of Thai women an the acceptance of Norplant^® and Norplant-2^® implants at the Research Center on Population Health, Wat Tat Thong, Bangkok, Thailand. According to the study results, 60 out of 140 Thai women (43%), with the mean age± standard deviation of 30 ± 5.2 years, accepted Norplant^® implants. Seventy percent of them had the education level of primary school, 36.7% were housewives and 35.0% were companies' employees. The average monthly income of families of these women was 5,965.80 ± 1,803.70 Baht and the average member of children was 1.9 ± I. Before accepting the implants, 71.6% used pills as their planning birth control and 86.6% acknowledged the method from friends, cousins or those already used the method. Supporting reasons for their decisions to accept Norplant^® implants were need no more children (26.6%) getting boring of the method of birth control (23.3%) and disliking the side effects of the other methods (11.7%). The major reasons of selecting Norplant^® implants instead of Norplant-2^® implants were its larger duration of effectiveness (38.3%) and having enough children but being afraid of tubal sterilization (35.0%). Among the 140 women, 80 (57.0%) accepted Norplant-2^® implants. The average of women of this group was 27.9 ± 4 years. Seventy percents had the education level of primary school, 36.2% were companies' employees and 31.3% were housewives. The average monthly income of the families was 5,999.20 ± 1,713.90 Baht and the average member of children was 1.6 ± 0.6. Before accepting the Norplant-2^® implants, pills were used for contraception in 61.2% of the women and the implant method was acknowledged from friends, cousins or those using the method in 78.7% of the women. The main supporting reasons for their decisions to accept Norplant-2^® implants were getting boring of the old methods of birth control (25.0%), the long period of contraception (21.0%), and disliking the side effects of other methods (15.0%). Among this group, 53.7% selected the Norplant-2^® instead of Norplant-2^® implants because they desired only 3 years of contraception.