الفهرس 
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Abstract
Family planning service has a significant impact on saving and improving the lives and health of women and their families. If all women could avoid high-risk pregnancies, the number of maternal deaths could fall by one quarter. Egypt’s concern with its rapid population growth was reflected in the establishment of national commission for population Matters in 1953.effective, inexpensive, simple to use and understand, totally reversible at any time. The injectable contraceptive method is one of these new technologies, it has universal appeal across different ethnic, educational and age categories. The present study was conducted to identify the factors affecting women’s acceptability of injectable long acting hormonal contraceptive in Alexandria governorate. One MCH center was randomly selected from each of the 7 Health Districts of Alexandria Governorate. For injectable contraceptive users “50” of the attending women using injectables contraceptive method from each MCH center were randomly chosen. Total sample size was 350 injectables users. “50” of the attending women using other methods of contraception from each center including past users of injectable contraceptives were also chosen. Total sample size of users of other methods of contraception was “350”. The total study sample was “700” women. They were interviewed according to: a- pre-designed interview questionnaire to collect the necessary data. This questionnaire included: • Data about sociodemographic characteristics of the sample these included their age, education, occupation, income and family size as well as obstetrical history such as gravidity, parity, number of abortions, number of living children. • Women’s knowledge toward injectable contraceptive, and the sources of this knowledge. • Users’ intention to continue and discontinue of injectables, reasons for continuation or discontinuation among users of injectables and also past users. • Variables of theory of reasoned action: These included women’s intention to use injectable contraceptive, their attitudes toward injectables and their subjective norms. The following are the main results of the study: It was found that the mean age among the users was 33.43 ? 6.69 years, while it was 30.02 ? 6.61 among the non users. • High proportion of the users (39.1) were of low socioeconomic level compared to 24.3of the non users. • About half of the injectables users were of high parity, had 2-3 pregnancies compared to 35.7 of the non users. • Half (50.0) of the users had 3-4 living children compared to 36.0 of the non users • The great majority of the sample (99.9) knew injectable contraceptives, while only 50.6 of them didn’t know the mechanism of its action. • The mean score of knowledge among the users was 11.140 ± 1.9 compared to 9.102±2.82 among the non users. The physician and TV represented the main sources of information about injectables (84.3 and 81.4) respectively. More than two fifths (43.1) were using injectable for one year or more, while about one quarter (25.7) were initial users. The majority of the users (89.4) intended to continue injectables. While 10.6o use and no need for client intervention. About half of the sample cited no side effect and safety. The main reasons cited by clients for discontinuation of injectables were: misperception, amenorrhea and bleeding. • About one third (31.1) of the non users had past history of using injectables and nearly half of them (45.0) had used injectable only for three months. • Side effects reported by past users’ sample which lead to discontinuation were: amenorrhea, nausea, fatigue and heavy bleeding. • Some factors were found to be significant predictors of the use of injectable contraceptives: Intention to use injectables OR = 2.8925, acceptability to injectables OR = 2.6451, knowledge about injectables, number of living children and socioeconomic score. Intention to use injectables, attitude, age and indirect subjective norms contributed to explain significantly 82.1 of the variation of acceptability to injectable as a method of contraception. The present study examined the applicability of the theory of reasoned action to predict intention to use from attitude toward injectables, and subjective norms and the result showed the following: • Direct attitude, subjective norms, socioeconomic score and women’s knowledge score contributed to explain significantly 78.2 of the variation of intention to use injectables. • Subjective norms, knowledge, indirect attitude, and age contributed to explain significantly 55.6of the variation of attitude to use injectables. • Direct attitude, indirect subjective norms, socioeconomic score, and women’s age contributed to explain significantly 49.6attending MCH centers to improve knowledge about injectables especially about, types, mechanism of action and its advantage. • The effective use of mass media to disseminate the correct information about injectables. • Audio visual aids about injectables should be available in all MCH and Health Units. • Training programs and refreshing courses regarding injectables to all health service providers. • Further studies are needed to help the promotion of acceptability to injectables as a method of contraception in Egypt.