Determination of Fertility State and Use of Family Planning Method in Female Seasonal Agricultural Workers

Objective: In this study, it was aimed to determine the fertility status and the use of family planning method in female seasonal agricultural workers. Materials and methods: This cross-sectional study was carried out on seasonal agricultural workers who came to work in Kayseri and the surrounding areas between July and November 2016 and resided in different camping sites during the spring, summer and autumn. A 45-items questionnaire including questions labor age, gender and marital status was used to determine the sociodemographic characteristics and the fertility characteristics such as live birth, stillbirth, low, number of living children, and the use of family planning method. Data were collected by face-to-face interviews by 4 researchers at camping sites. We evaluated data from 141 married women. Findings: Mean age was 34.2 ± 12.1. Of subjects included, 55.1% was female, 50.3% were married, and 69.5% were illiterate. Of married women, 5.0% of were under the age of 18 and age at first pregnancy was 15-20 years. The rates of women with at least one abortion and those with less than 2 years between 2 births were 42.5% and 86.5%, respectively. The rate of women with more than 4 live births was 62.7%. It was determined that no family planning method was used in 70.6% of the women. Conclusion: It was found that women who are agricultural workers had child at younger age, higher number of pregnancy, more frequent pregnancy than general population with extremely low rates of use of contraceptive methods