Practical Steps of Intervention Design to increase the Childbearing Desires: An Intervention Mapping Approach

Background: Increasing the desire to have children is one of the important priorities of health systems, which requires targeted planning. This paper describes the development an intervention program using an intervention mapping approach (IMA) to increase the childbearing desires  Methods: Between July to November 2022, steps of the IMA process were completed. Beginning with the needs assessment, in this stage we conducted a literature review, held focus groups, and conducted interviews with local stakeholders, program objectives and target audience were determined and finally, we prepared a road map for targeted interventions. Results: The needs assessment complete the questionnaire(n=1288), literature review, three focus groups (N=25 participants) and interviews (N=30 participants), indicated that the most effective factors in the parents' childbearing low desires were concern about the future of their children, economic problems, low parenting skills, and low skills to interact with the spouse. Finally, according PRECEDE-PROCEED model awareness, attitude, and self-efficacy were categorized as determinants at the individual level, perceived subjective norm at the family level, and organizational changes at the social level based on the results of the needs assessment.in fact findings from each step of the process informed successive steps.  Conclusion: Intervention mapping is a control-oriented, systematic, participation-based approach to design and implement targeted and on-going health promotion programs.