Knowledge, Awareness, and Perception of Minembwe Reproductive Age Women on the Use of Modern Contraceptive Methods
- May 11, 2019
- Posted by: RSIS
- Category: Health Sciences
International Journal of Research and Scientific Innovation (IJRSI) | Volume VI, Issue IV, April 2019 | ISSN 2321–2705
Freddy Rukema Kaniki
Department of Health Sciences Eben-Ezer University, Minembwe, the Democratic Republic of the Congo
Abstract:-The struggle to have a choice whenever women and girls want to control pregnancy has been a great challenge as far as human history. The majority of rural women in sub-Saharan Africa have little or inadequate information on modern birth control. This study was conducted to assess the knowledge, awareness, and perception of Minembwe women of reproductive age on the use of modern contraceptive methods. This was a descriptive study that collected primary data through a structured questionnaire distributed to women who consented to participate in the study and data collected was analyzed using IBM-SPSS version 21.0. There were 370 participants of which the majority were within the age group 26 – 30 years, with most secondary education 45.7% and had at least 4 children (64.9%). Not less than 72.2% had good knowledge of reproductive health (RH) and family planning (FP) (67.0%) with the radio as the main source of information. The average knowledge of modern contraceptive methods was 30.5% with the knowledge of injectable contraceptives (81.1%), implants (53.5%), while Female Sterilization (Tubal Ligation) and Diaphragm were 11.6% and 5.9% respectively. Educated women had a higher knowledge of FP (90.0%) and 60.0% believed that family planning is useful. Not less than 83.8%% still want to have more children. Only 23.9% had the plan to use modern contraceptives while 46.2% were not involved in any form of birth control. Religion, occupation, information about FP were found to be significantly associated with knowledge, attitude, and perception of the women on FP. Those with a positive attitude on FP tend to practice FP over 6 times more than those who had a negative attitude. Also, women who believed that FP is useful for child spacing practiced FP 4.0 times more than those who did not. The poor knowledge can be attributed to the poor level of education, distance and remoteness, and the fact that the major source of information is radio while other media are almost inaccessible.
Keywords: Contraception, Family planning, Birth control, Reproduction, child spacing
I. INTRODUCTION
Throughout the history of mankind, women and girls have struggled to control pregnancies when they wanted to. This remained a private and individual struggle until the 1968 International Conference on Human Rights when family planning (FP) was recognized as a human rights’ obligation for every Country [1].
