The Use of Counseling Standards in a Fertility Health Program from the Perspective of Clients.

Background: Using counseling standards by fertility health counselors is necessary in achieving the goals of every fertility health and family planning program. The current study investigated the implementation of counseling standards by counselors from the viewpoint of fertility health clients in Isfahan, Iran during 2011. Methods: This study was conducted on 236 randomly-selected clients of the fertility health program in 20 counseling centers in Isfahan. The counseling standard questionnaire (designed based on a checklist provided by the Iranian Ministry of Health) was used to collect data. Statistical analyses were performed using analysis of variance, chi-square test, and t-tests in SPSS₁₆. Findings: Most clients ranked verbal and non-verbal communication, counseling conditions, selection of contraceptive method, and describing the importance of fertility health as satisfactory. In contrast, correcting the wrong beliefs of clients about the contraceptive methods and helping them choose the right decision were less satisfactory according to the standards. Conclusion: The use of counseling standards in the studied health fertility program was mostly ranked as satisfactory. Nevertheless, improvement of some qualitative domains of counseling seems necessary. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]