Introduction:

Female sterilization is a permanent contraceptive method, whose choice represents a transcendental decision in a woman's life, influenced by her context, and her personal qualities.

Objective:

To describe the characteristics of women users of the female sterilization contraceptive method.

Methods:

Descriptive study based on the Demographic and Family Health Survey of 2021. From the databases, 2 306 women between 20 and 49 years of age were selected as users of female sterilization, in which the sociodemographic, reproductive and method-specific characteristics were analyzed. Unweighted and weighted counts with 95% confidence intervals.

Results:

Regarding sociodemographic characteristics, 51% were aged 40 to 49 years, 87.9% were urban, 42.8% had secondary education and 11.4% were very poor. Regarding the reproductive profile, 61.7% have 3 to 4 children, 3.7% have been visited by health personnel to discuss family planning and 29.2% have a history of abortion. Regarding the characteristics related to the method, 5.7% were not informed that they could not have more children and 19.9% had had an abortion 2 to 3 years before.

Conclusion:

Most of the women are adults, well-educated and live in urban areas. In addition, they have 3 or more children and know that they cannot have more children after female sterilization.

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