How can family nurse practitioners reduce barriers to intrauterine devices among Canadian women?

Canada continues to struggle with high rates of unplanned pregnancies resulting in significant health, financial, and social implications. The best strategy in preventing unplanned pregnancies is with regular use of reliable and safe contraception. In Canada, most women rely on oral hormones and male condoms as their primary means of contraception, despite their reduced efficacy. IUDs, on the other hand, are a highly reliable, safe and reversible form of contraception, yet many Canadian women do not use them. A thorough literature review found that many factors act as barriers to IUD use in Canada, which were found to be impeding IUD use in Canada. Three categories of barriers to IUD use were identified: those associated with the IUD user, those associated with the healthcare provider, and those associated with the healthcare system. In response to these barriers, I have targeted a collection of strategies that could be implemented to help reduce them to assure reliable accessibility to IUDs in Canada.