A survey of Behvarzes, (Primary health care workers) reproductive behaviors in Babol, 1996

Abstract

Objective: Primary health care workers (Behvarzes) are responsible for a major part of family planning programs in rural areas. Therefore, to evaluate the practice of behvarzes in their own family planning, reproductive behaviors of all married behvarzes of Babol were investigated. Methods: A questionnaire was prepared by the investigator and completed by married behvarzes. Findings: The mean age of behvarzes was 30.01 years and the mean number of their children was 2.03. The investigation shows that female behvarzes had a better reproductive behavior than the male ones, based on the fact that they had fewer children (i.e. 1.7 in comparison with 2.7, P<0.005). Further more, according to higher mean age of marriage (P<0.001) and mean age of the first pregnancy (P<0.001), in this manner the prolonged interval of birth spacing and the mean interval between the last two pregnancies (P<0.025), female behvarzes had a better reproductive behavior than the views of the male behvarzes, it should be indicated that statistical tests show a significant difference between two groups except in one of those mentioned factors (i.e. the mean of birth spacing). The survey on family planning methods shows that only 57.4% of behvarzes practiced safe contraceptive methods. Conclusion: In general, the reproductive behaviors of female’s behvarzes were more acceptable than male behvarzes when compared to the rural women, behvarzes (Men and women) were better in their reproductive behaviors.

Keywords

• reproductive behaviors
• behvarze
• babol