Sociodemographic factors associated with the use and non-use of modern contraception in married women

Abstract

Objective: To determine the sociodemographic factors associated with the use and non-use of modern contraception in married women and to assess the role played by husbands, parents and parents in-law in influencing married women's decision to use or not-use modern contraception. Study design: Unmatched case control study with one to one ratio of cases and controls. Setting: A community health center located in Asmara, the capital city of Eritrea. Methods: Two hundred and forty married women aged from 18 to 45 years were enrolled in this study. The cases are currently married women who have used modern contraception for contraceptive purpose during the study period while the control are currently married women who have never used modern contraception in their married life despite they are appropriate candidate for modern contraception use. Both cases and control were selected similarly by conveinence sampling of married women who came to attend a community health center. A standardized questionnaire was used as the data collection instrument to interview all the subjects participated in the study. Results: Background residence of husbands (OR 2.39, 95% CI 1.16-4.89, p-value = 0.02), first marriage (OR for women 4.26, 95% CI 1.66-10.94, p-value = 0.003 and OR for husbands 2.87, 95% CI 1.35-6.11, p-value = 0.008), educational level of women (p-value = 0.01), total monthly family income (p-value = 0.006), achievement of desired number and sex of children (OR 2.3, 95% CI of 1.10-4.88, p-value = 0.04), discussion with spouse (OR 43.5, 95% CI 15-125, p-value = 0.001), knowledge about modern contraception (p-value = 0.001), women's approval (p-value = 0.001), husband's approval (OR 29.9, 95% CI 10.39-86.45, p-value = 0.001), parent's approval (OR 3.8, 95% CI of 2.25-6.58, p-value = 0.001), parent's in-law's approval (OR 2.1, 95% CI 1.30-3.66, p-value = 0.004), talking about modern contraception with peers (OR 2.3, 95% CI of 1.23-4.16, p-value = 0.01), knowing peers who used modern contraception (OR 2.7, 95% CI 1.59 - 4.66, p-value = 0.001) and acceptance of modern contraception by the society (p-value = 0.05) were identified as significant socio demographic factors associated with the use and non use of modern contraception in married women. Multiple logistic regression analysis showed that only three variables: discussion with spouse, husband's approval and parent's approval had statistical significance. Conclusion: These findings could be valuable to identify married women to be targeted for modern contraception promotion, to decide the focus group for major health education programs and to design health education strategies and materials for increasing the existing low modern contraception use in married women.