Development of Reproductive Health of Women in the Czech Republic in 1993-1997VI. Perspective for Near Future

Overview

Objective:
Overall objective is to detect changes in reproductive health of women due to changesin the system of social and health care. The particular objective of this part of the study (part VI)is to recommend, based on the results of previous analyses, further development leading to theimprovement of contraception/abortion ratio.Design: Retrospective comparative epidemiological study.Setting: Institute for the Care of Mother and Child, Praha 4 - Podolí.Methods: Final recommendations are based on the results of previous parts of the study and onthe results of newly analyzed data from the previous surveys.Results: This final part of the study follows the lines of the WHO —strategic approachic to theimprovement of quality of reproductive health care differentiated into three periods. The firstperiod was the period of evaluation of background information and this was the objective of thefirst four particular studies (parts I-IV). The second period targeted an identification of optimalmodel; using the suggested methods we analyzed attitude of Czech women towards artificialabortion and towards particular methods of contraception as well as the positively developingcontraception/abortion ratio in 1998. Based on all our results we came to recommended measureswith expected mid-term and long-term effects. The third period, aiming at the wide implementati-on of the most appropriate interventions, could be approached only after the evaluation of effectiveness of these measures.Conclusions: We can expect, as a result of projected demographic changes in the population offertile women for next five years, a continuation of slow decrease of number of artificial abortions. More substantial decrease would require increased motivation of risk group of women to usemodern methods of contraception, differentiated according to their sexual activity. Educationand media must play a vital role in improvement of knowledge about healthy and sexual life usingmore effective methods.

Key words:
contraception, induced abortion, women information and motivation, strategic approach