ASSESSMENT OF UNMET NEED FOR CONTRACEPTION IN HEALTH CARE PROVIDERS

Abstract

Objective: To determine the prevalence of the unmet need for contraception in terms of spacing birth for a sample of married women of reproductive age (15-49 years) working in tertiary care and Identify underlying factors of unmet need for contraception in same age group.

Study Design: Descriptive cross sectional study.

Place and Duration of Study: Armed forces postgraduate medical institute (AFPGMI), from Apr 2018 to Jan 2019.

Methodology: This study was conducted in tertiary care hospital after taking ethical approval from institutional ethical review board. With anticipated Prevalence of unmet need for contraception of 25%, 95% level of confidence and margin of error 0.05, sample size calculated for the study by using Epi info was 317 married women of reproductive age. Two class “A” Military hospitals out of total ten were selected by convenient
method. From the selected hospitals, 317 women of reproductive age, sample size collected by non-probability consecutive method. The data was collected through a preformed questionnaire. Data was entered and analyzed through SPSS version 22. Frequency of women with unmet need for contraception was calculated. Mean and Standard deviations were calculated for numerical data like age. Frequencies and percentages for qualitative variables. Chi square test was applied to find out significant difference if existed. A p-value less than 0.05 were taken as significant.

Results: Total 317 women were included in the study having mean age of 26.48 ± 6.25 years. The prevalence of unmet need of contraception for spacing among health care providers in tertiary care hospital was 7.2%. More than half of the respondents (55.8%) in the study had 1-2 alive male issues. Husband or in laws opposition was significantly associated with unmet need of contraception in terms of spacing childbirth (p≤0.001). Men's
awareness raising techniques by reproductive health care providers are likely to improve in existing conditions. In our study the desire for male child was also significantly associated with unmet need for spacing child birth (p≤0.001). Perception of respondents regarding acceptance of spacing child birth in religion is significantly related with the unmet need for contraception in terms of spacing (p≤0.001).

Conclusion: The study concluded that the factors associated with unmet of contraception were husband or in laws opposition, non-acceptance of contraceptive use in religion and desire for male child.