Awareness, attitude and practice of family planning methods in a tertiary care hospital, Uttar Pradesh, India

Abstract

Original Research ArticleAwareness, attitude and practice of family planning methods in a tertiary care hospital, Uttar Pradesh, India Uruj Jahan, Kavita Verma*, Shruti Gupta, Renu Gupta, Simmi Mahour, Neha Kirti, Poonam Verma INTRODUCTIONIncreasing population growth is a worldwide problem today and our country with a growth rate of 16 million each year is the second most populous in the world. Copyright: © the author(s), publisher and licensee Medip Academy. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License, which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. ABSTRACTBackground: Family planning services have the potential to improve the quality of the lives of people and their economic welfare. The objective of the study was to assess the level of awareness, attitude, and current practice of different family planning methods and to elicit reasons for couples not using any method. Methods: A cross sectional descriptive study was done among 1050 married women of reproductive age . Results: Most of the women were between 21-34 years of age (60.1%) and had primary level of education (40%).It was observed that with increase in level of education, awareness also increased (77.7%). The most common source of information was mass media (53.2%). Contraceptive prevalence rate was 62.9%, higher than the national data as 28.5%. Most of them (93.1%) were aware of atleast one family planning method. The most commonly known were OCPs (74.8%), condom (68.8%) and IUCD (56.6%). Awareness about female sterilisation (36.4%) was more than male sterilisation (25.3%). 62.9% had used atleast one contraceptive method, three prevailing methods used were condom (65.1%), OCPs (31.8%) and IUCD (9.09%). Reasons precluding women from practicing contraception were desire to have a child (60.5%), lack of knowledge (42.4%), and unbearable side effects (25.5%). Majority (92.4%) thought that contraceptive use was beneficial but only (27.2%) expressed the willingness to start practicing contraception if they received more information about the subject. Conclusions: Majority of women had optimal knowledge and favourable attitude, still there is need to educate and motivate couples to improve family planning services.

Knowledge, attitude and practice of family planning among women of reproductive age group attending outpatient department in a tertiary centre of Northern India

“…The most common side effects were menstrual irregularities 50 (25%) followed by change in weight 20 (10%) ( Table 5). [14][15][16][17][18] In the present study, 94% of the subjects were aware of one or more methods of contraception which is in consistent with the earlier reports of 95.2%, 97.7% and 100%. [19][20][21] The results also are similar to the international study by Abasiattai 14,22 However, contrast studies in KSA and in Jordan showed a low level of knowledge regarding the contraceptive usage.…”

“…Similar results were found in study conducted at Kanpur, they found 69.6% contraceptive usage in secondary and higher educated women and 62.6% in primary educated women. 15 In other study, Gautam AC et al, found that raise in education status helps in improving acceptance of contraceptive practices. 29 Contraception usage was more in Urban population (71.03%) compared to Rural population.…”

“…Among the temporary methods, condoms (85%) was most known method followed by oral contraceptives (72%) and IUCDs (59%) similar to the study conducted by Jahan U et al, where 74.8% subjects know about OCPs, 68.8% about condoms followed by IUCDs (56.6%) and injectables (38.4%). 15 While in Gupta V et al, study female sterilization (45.6%) was the most chosen method followed by IUCDs (23%) and condoms (22%), the least preference was given to OCPs (9.2%). 35 Abasiattai A et al, found male condoms to be the most used method (40.4%) while Tuladhar H et al, found the most used method in their study was depo provera.…”

“…Jahan U et al, had also shown that 77.5% of women with 3 or more living issues were used contraceptive methods as compared to 35% of those having no live issues. 15 Lasse A et al, had also shown that women with 3 or more living children are more likely to use contraception than if they had 2 or less. 30 Positive correlation was observed between age, parity, female occupation, education and contraceptive practices which is similar to other Pakistani study.…”

Knowledge and practice about contraception among married women in reproductive age group in a rural area of Tirunelveli district, Tamil Nadu, India: a cross-sectional study

“…10 Prevalence of contraceptive use was 62.9% among the study participants. Majority of them (93.1%) were aware of at least one form of family planning method.…”