Background & Objective: Depot-medroxyprogesterone acetate (DMPA) is an injectable contraceptive method that is widely used by 68 million women in over 114 countries and was reported Different medical and non medical reasons were reported for discontinuation of DMPA use. Due to little information about continuation rate and reasons for discontinuations of DMPA in this region and because of the different result of the research in other countries this study was designed. to evaluate the use of DMPA�including continuation rate and side effects.

  Methods: In this cross sectional retrospective study 396 DMPA user women referring to health care centers in Ardabil were selected through classified sampling. The data were collected by a questionnaire by interviewing the subjects and data were analyzed by SPSS software using analysis variance (ANOVA) and correlation and T-test.

  Results: The mean age of the study population was 32±7.8 years, 33.8% had primary education and the majority of the users were housewives (%95) and only20 (%5) were employed. 6, 9, 12 and 24 month cumulative continuation rate of DMPA were recorded as %44.5, %26.5, %18.2 and %2.3 respectively. The most common reason for discontinuation among all of groups was amenorrhea. The most common side effects were amenorrhea (%69.7), low back pain (%13.4), and weight gain (%13.4) and headache (%10.4). There was a significant corvelation belween education level and spouse's education level, spouse's job, family income, grariding, number of off spring, type of previous delivery and continuity of DMPA (p<0.05).

  Conclusion: The result of this study could help health authorities and care givers in term of correct counseling and follow up. This factor could result in more satisfaction and improve continuation rate of DMPA.

  Background & Objectives: Despite of high family planning coverage in Ardabil province comparing to other provinces of country, the population growth rate is higher than other provinces in Ardabil that presents incorrect, discontinuous, and interrupted use of intrauterine devices (IUD). This research was carried out to investigate the continuation, and factors affecting to interrupted use of IUD in women referring to health centers of Ardabil city in 2004.

  Methods: The Subjects of this descriptive-analytic and historical cohort study were 301 women. Data were collected by a questionnaire and were analyzed by Kaplan-Meier Survival and Log-Rank tests through SPSS software.

  Results: Duration of continuous use of IUD was more than 18 months among 77.1 % of subjects. Average duration was higher in 20-25 years women (24.5 ± 1 months). The lowest duration of continuous use of IUD was observed among women with age higher then 25 years old (14.3 ± 3.4 months). There was a significant relationship between discontinuous use of IUD and volume of menstrual bleeding (p=0.005). The mean of continuation in the women with a lot of bleeding was 20.5 ± 1 while for the women with low bleeding was 22.4 ± 1.5. Type of referring to IUD control had meaningful correlation (p=0.03) with average duration of using this device. Mean time of continuation in women that referred occasionally was 23.8 ± 0.6. There was significant relation between complication and IUD interruption. The highest interruption time belonged to the women that declared the infection, wound and PID (mean 25.5 months) and the lowest interruption time was observed in the women with bleeding and spotting (mean 18 months).

  Conclusion: Continuation of using IUD in 87.4 % of women was less than 6 months, in 81.4% was from 6 to 12 months, and in 72.1 % was from 12 to18 months. The most common reason of discontinuation was medical factors and IUD caused complication. The most common complication was bleeding.