The rural health worker as a family planning provider: a village trial in Iran.

The impact of the Kavar Village Health Worker Project on contraceptive knowledge, attitudes, and practice was studied 14 months after health workers were deployed in this pilot project in rural Iran. Results showed that knowledge and use of the pill were significantly higher in the project villages than in control villages, where the pill was supplied by a nonresident rural midwife: 28 percent of married women of reproductive age were using the pill in project villages compared with 15 percent in control villages. The sex of health workers did not appear to affect the proportion of pill acceptors or length of use. Attitudes toward contraceptive use, however, did not vary significantly between project and control villages.