BackgroundBirth control is the conscious control of the birth rate by methods which temporarily prevent conception by interfering with the normal process of ovulation, fertilization, and implantation. High contraceptive prevalence rate is always expected for controlling births for those countries that are experiencing high population growth rate. The factors that influence contraceptive prevalence are also important to know for policy implication purposes in Bangladesh. This study aims to explore the socio-economic, demographic and others key factors that influence the use of contraception in Bangladesh.MethodsThe contraception data are extracted from the 2014 Bangladesh Demographic and Health Survey (BDHS) data which were collected by using a two stage stratified random sampling technique that is a source of nested variability. The nested sources of variability must be incorporated in the model using random effects in order to model the actual parameter effects on contraceptive prevalence. A mixed effect logistic regression model has been implemented for the binary contraceptive data, where parameters are estimated through generalized estimating equation by assuming exchangeable correlation structure to explore and identify the factors that truly affect the use of contraception in Bangladesh.ResultsThe prevalence of contraception use by currently married 15–49 years aged women or their husbands is 62.4%. Our study finds that administrative division, place of residence, religion, number of household members, woman’s age, occupation, body mass index, breastfeeding practice, husband’s education, wish for children, living status with wife, sexual activity in past year, women amenorrheic status, abstaining status, number of children born in last five years and total children ever died were significantly associated with contraception use in Bangladesh.ConclusionsThe odds of women experiencing the outcome of interest are not independent due to the nested structure of the data. As a result, a mixed effect model is implemented for the binary variable ‘contraceptive use’ to produce true estimates for the significant determinants of contraceptive use in Bangladesh. Knowing such true estimates is important for attaining future goals including increasing contraception use from 62 to 75% by 2020 by the Bangladesh government’s Health, Population & Nutrition Sector Development Program (HPNSDP).Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (10.1186/s12889-018-5098-1) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Purpose Depression, one of the most common mental disorders, is up-surging worldwide amid the ongoing coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, especially among the older population. This study aims to measure prevalent depressive symptoms and its associates among older adults amid the COVID-19 pandemic in Bangladesh. Methods This cross-sectional study was carried out among 1032 older Bangladeshi adults, aged 60 years and above, through telephone interviews in October 2020. We used a semi-structured questionnaire to collect data on participants’ socio-demographic and lifestyle characteristics, pre-existing medical conditions, and COVID-19-related information. Meanwhile, depressive symptoms were measured using the 15-item Geriatric Depression Scale (GDS-15). The binary logistic regression model was used to identify the factors associated with depressive symptoms. Results Two-in-five participants showed depressive symptoms on the GDS-15 scale. Poor socioeconomic characteristic such as low family income, dependency on the family for living, recipient of financial support during the pandemic was associated with higher odds of depressive symptoms. Participants with pre-existing medical conditions had 91% higher odds of depressive symptoms. Social isolation, captured in terms of living alone (aOR = 2.11, 95% CI 1.11–4.01), less frequent communication during pandemic (aOR = 1.55, 95% CI 1.07–2.26), perceived loneliness (aOR = 2.25, 95% CI 1.47–3.45), and isolation from others (aOR = 2.45, 95% CI 1.62–3.70) were associated with higher odds of depressive symptoms. Conclusions Our study found a sizeable proportion of study participants with depressive symptoms amidst the ongoing pandemic. The findings of the present study call for the urgent need for mental health support package targeting this vulnerable group of population.

Background Despite progress, suboptimal feeding practices and undernutrition particularly in the form of stunting still remains a major issue among children aged less than 5 years in Bangladesh. Since mothers are the primary caregivers of young children, maternal nutrition counselling can be effective in improving knowledge and practices on child feeding. The Building Resources Across Communities (BRAC) initiated a nutrition counselling intervention using its essential health care (EHC) skeleton in 114 sub-districts of Bangladesh in 2012. This study assessed the role of this intervention on the prevalence of stunting and feeding practices among children aged less than 5 years. Methods The data was collected as part of a nationwide cross-sectional survey, which followed a two-stage cluster random sampling procedure and was conducted between October 2015 and January 2016. The present study analyzed the information of 3009 mother-children dyads from two selected survey areas: i) areas where the EHC package was delivered (comparison; n = 1452), ii) areas with EHC plus nutrition counselling package (intervention; n = 1557) was delivered. The Chi-square test was done to compare the child feeding practices and stunting prevalence between intervention and comparison. The degree of strength of the association of stunting and the intervention was estimated using a mixed-effect logistic regression model. Results The study revealed that the prevalence of stunting was significantly lower in areas where the intervention was delivered compared to the comparison areas (29% vs. 37%, P < 0.001). Furthermore, after adjusting for administrative zone, household wealth quintile, child’s age, gender, maternal age, education, occupation, cluster disparity, and variation between study groups, it was seen that the risk of stunting was 25% lower in the intervention areas compared to the comparison areas (aOR: 0.75, 95% CI: 0.60–0.94; P = 0.012). Optimal child feeding practices were also more common among mothers from intervention areas than those of the comparison areas (exclusive breastfeeding: 72.7 vs. 59.4%, P = 0.008; feeding 4+ food groups: 42.9 vs. 34.1%, P < 0.001; having minimum acceptable diet: 31.2 vs. 25.3%, P = 0.017; feeding multiple micro-nutrient powder: 16.2 vs. 7.4%, P < 0.001). Conclusions The study highlighted that nutrition counselling of mothers may be effective in reducing childhood stunting with concomitant improvement in optimal feeding practices in children under 5 years of age. The frontline community health workers can be trained to counsel mothers on optimal child feeding practices and this could help reduce the prevalence of stunting.