ACCEPTANCE AND UTILISATION OF FAMILY PLANNING SERVICES AMONGST SECONDARY SCHOOL STUDENTS

ACCEPTANCE AND UTILISATION OF FAMILY PLANNING SERVICES AMONGST SECONDARY SCHOOL STUDENTS

EXCERPT FROM THE STUDY

This study has established that secondary school students in rural areas of Cross River state have low level of knowledge on family planning and its methods. Attitude towards family planning is poor with cultural and religious misconceptions playing vital roles. Level of use of family planning methods is also low. Established determinants of utilization of family planning services include male non-involvement, family setting, and age.

Findings from this study of educational attainment positively associated with family planning services utilization corroborated with findings from NDHS 2013 where a larger number of respondents who had tertiary education were more likely to use a family planning method compared to those with lower grades of education (p<0.01). But this study finding contrasted with findings from a study in South-Western Nigeria where no significant association was found between contraceptive use and educational status; these could be due to the fewer number of respondents that had no formal education or primary school education level in the study. Generally, education is a major determinant of utilization of health services. This is achieved by improving health literacy and empowering individual to make informed choices about modern health facilities. In addition, contraceptive use has been shown to affect the timing for fertility among career women. For instance, late marriage due to time spent studying has been documented to facilitate more use of contraception among educated women than illiterates.

There is a significant association between family setting and family planning services utilization with more women in monogamous family settings using family planning methods as compared to those in polygamous family setting. This may be a reflection of the insecurity that exists among women trying to outwit each other in the number of children in order to secure their positions in the family and in the will when the husband dies. Low contraceptive use among rural women found in this study is similar to findings in studies by Bogale et al, Arbab et al, and Olalekan et al which showed a significant association between contraceptive use and place of residence, as women who live in urban areas had greater chance of being more educated, more access to health facilities, greater exposure to mass media messages, more appropriate knowledge about modern contraceptive issues than their counterpart who dwell in the rural areas where unmet need for family planning has been shown to be high.67,68,69

In conformity with findings in this study regarding age, C.L Ejembi et al in a study conducted among rural Hausa women in Zaria environs, northern Nigeria found statistical significant association between age (p<0.001) and education (p<0.05) and level of knowledge of contraceptive methods. Utilization was very low, only 1.8% had ever used a method while 0.9% was using a method at the time of the study. The importance of contraceptives in expanding women’s choices, giving them control over their lives and reducing the incidence of high risk pregnancies have been well documented. However many factors have been found to affect a woman’s fertility regulation decisions; they include the status of the woman, the survival chances of her children and knowledge of, availability of, access to and quality of family planning services. The very low status of the women in the rural areas and cultural and religious aversion to family planning may be working in synergy with health services related factors to limit utilization of family planning services in the localities.

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