Effect of education on knowledge of fertility counseling and attitudes toward fertility control

BACKGROUND: The development of any society depends on proper planning in various fields such as population and birth control. Fertility control is designed to create a level of population growth appropriate to the resources available and to ensure a good life. Receiving information and education is one of the basic strategies to change the attitude toward fertility and awareness in most people in society. Therefore, this study was conducted to determine the effect of education on knowledge of fertility counseling and attitudes toward fertility control in health workers. MATERIALS AND METHODS: The present study was a randomized clinical trial with a control group that was conducted in the presence of 107 health workers of health centers and community health centers working in Mashhad in 2017. The research units were randomly divided into three groups (webinar training, group discussion training, and control). Research tools were researcher-made questionnaires on attitudes toward fertility and measuring healthy reproductive awareness that all study participants completed at the beginning of the study and 2 weeks after the intervention. Data analysis was performed by the Chi-square, one-way analysis of variance, and independent t-test using the SPSS software version 16. RESULTS: The results of this study showed that at the beginning of the study, all three groups were homogeneous in terms of quantitative and qualitative demographic variables including age, education, work experience, type of employment, and number of family members. The results of Kruskal–Wallis test showed that before the intervention, the three groups did not have a statistically significant difference in terms of mean scores of awareness about fertility counseling (P = 0.77) and attitude toward fertility control (P = 0.523), but this relationship was significant after the interventions. Furthermore, the results of Mann–Whitney intragroup test showed that the scores before and after the intervention were significant in both educational groups (P = 0.001). CONCLUSION: Considering the importance of healthy fertility counseling and the important place of education in promoting awareness and attitude toward healthy fertility, it is recommended to use active educational methods to promote the awareness and attitude of health workers to provide healthy fertility services to couples.