‘Country women are resilient but. …’: Family planning access in rural Victoria

Abstract

Most women use family planning services during their reproductive lifetime, but many lack ready access to such services, particularly in a rural area. The aim of this study was to document and thus develop an understanding of the facilitators and barriers to accessing three types of family planning services (emergency contraception, termination of pregnancy, and options counselling) within a particular rural area of Victoria, Australia, and how these might affect women's psychosocial health and their ability to make timely decisions about continuation of a pregnancy. A feminist framework was adopted throughout the study, and qualitative methods were employed in the design. Eleven professionals whose current employment was connected to family planning service provision participated in semistructured interviews that focussed on their perceptions and experiences of women's access to family planning services in the Grampians Region of Victoria. Findings from a thematic analysis confirmed that rural women face many barriers identified in past Australian and international research, including lack of local services, distance from metropolitan services, anonymity and confidentiality issues, and judgemental service providers. Further issues raised included the legal status of pregnancy termination, rural culture, gender relations, and family planning myths and misinformation. Women confronting these barriers were seen to experience negative psychosocial effects which can compromise timely decision-making.This study highlights the complexity of women's reproductive "choices", and includes recommendations for the design of plausible interventions and reproductive health promotion strategies to address the barriers identified and facilitate women's access to family planning services as a human right.

Effects of Leaf Surface Energy on Pesticidal Performance

“…The polar and dispersive parts of the surface tension are not taken into consideration. Experimentally, the value of 0.0001247 (m 2 mJ -1 ) 2 is determined for the constant β (Hansen 2004;Krüss 2017).…”

“…In the study, it is aimed to determine the reactions of some of the conventional p farming against the spray applied in the agricultural struggle, as meaningfu In order to solve the Equation, at least three liquids with known properties are required. One of them is a fluid with dispersive properties (e.g., diiodomethane), the other is a bipolar fluid with polar properties (e.g., water, formamide) (Krüss 2017).…”

Co‐design of a nurse‐led model of care to increase access to medical abortion and contraception in rural and regional general practice: A protocol

“…There are significant barriers to accessing effective contraception and abortion services in Australia 1 . Compared to their metropolitan counterparts, women living in rural and regional areas face additional barriers to access including a lack of local services, misinformation, increased costs, increased stigma and issues around confidentiality 1 .…”

“…There are significant barriers to accessing effective contraception and abortion services in Australia 1 . Compared to their metropolitan counterparts, women living in rural and regional areas face additional barriers to access including a lack of local services, misinformation, increased costs, increased stigma and issues around confidentiality 1 . Long‐acting reversible contraceptives (LARC; intrauterine devices and subdermal implant) are more than 99% effective at preventing pregnancy 2 and are an acceptable contraceptive method to users 3 .…”

Barriers to accessing termination of pregnancy in a remote and rural setting: a qualitative study

“…Evidence from similar settings with legal TOP suggests that when seeking TOP, women living rurally are disadvantaged compared with urban women, due to lack of local services, judgemental service providers and long‐distance travel necessitating substantial financial outlay . Although women will travel long distances to undergo TOP, the greater the distance a woman lives from facilities, the less likely she is to use them .…”