Factors affecting utilization of family planning services among married women of reproductive age living in the rural area of Kayin State, Myanmar

Abstract

The rewards of promoting family planning services not only restricted to improving maternal or child health but also significantly advanced the fitting occasion to gain higher educational status, better employment, empowerment and greater socioeconomic status especially for girls and women. The main purpose of this study was to assess the utilization proportion of family planning services for contraception and to determine the factors affecting the utilization of contraception among 388 married women of reproductive age living in the rural area of Hpa-an Township, Kayin state, Myanmar. The data was collected by face to face interview in this quantitative cross-sectional descriptive study. This study revealed that the proportion of married reproductive aged women who consume contraception was (87.1%). The most common used methods were injectable and oral contraceptive pills. The key factors affecting the usage of contraception were women age, level of education, number of living children, knowledge level about contraception, affordability for contraceptive cost, distance and transportation to the service point, satisfaction on the services, receiving status of health education about contraception and the number of type of health education they received in bivariate analysis. In multivariate analysis, only women age, level of education, knowledge level and receiving status of health education about contraception are significant after controlling other independent variables. The study also revealed that high education level and high knowledge are the indicators. Though married women received health information up to a certain level, some still want to get more information and health education about contraception.