This is an evaluation research with quantitative and qualitative approaches that had for objective to describe the obstacles related to the offer of information in family planning (FP) / birth-control methods (MACs); to identify the responsible actors for this activity; to lift the knowledge of the clientele about MACs and the notion that this has regarding the importance of planning the family. The data were collected by interviews and free observation in an area of Ceará. The results described a practice of giving information in FP centered in the individual orientation and group or collective activities being accomplished sporadically, which most of the nurses attributed to the overload of tasks and the high number of people linked to a Team of Family Health (TFH); the doctors' absence in some TFH, overloading the nurse; and the lack of support matters and of an appropriate physical space. The pill, the masculine preservative and the injetable were MACs more acquaintance from the interviewed women, proceeded by DIU, the table and the maternal suckling. Even so, the need of larger popularization of those information was verified. We stood out the singular perceptions described by the women's group, keeping informations of quite wide sense on the benefits of FP.
Family planning; Evaluation; Information in health; Health promotion
