Planificación familiar en mujeres en condiciones de vulnerabilidad social

introduction: family planning is an essential component of primary health care and reproductive, unattended in socially vulnerable populations. objective: to evaluate the basic knowledge about family planning and its implementation, in women of reproductive age living in poverty and vulnerability in a neighborhood of the city of medellín, colombia in 2010. materials and methods: it was performed a cross sectional study, which applied a semi-structured interview to 100 women elected by open sampling. results: the women surveyed had basic knowledge about the existence of different methods of family planning. 93% of women did not want to conceive more children, the 38.7% of these, did not plan at the time of the interview. 42% had low level of schooling relation was found between this and the number of children, where 31% of the mothers had children between 3 and 7 (p <0.001, or: 5.8). 68% of the women were sexually active, 69.1% of these planned. 33% began sex before age 15 year old, relating to failure to use contraception, the number of children and not planning pregnancies; (p <0.02). from the women using some form of planning 82% received medical advice for their use, however only 14% belong to the family planning program. conclusion: the level of knowledge of family planning methods is acceptable, however this is not reflected in their use. the age of first sexual intercourse early, is a determinant of vulnerability, because it is influenced by the poverty status of these women. salud uis 2011; 43 (3): 241-248