English

Abstract

Lower level of community perceptions on family planning still exist in many parts of India. Further there is dearth of state level information for the same. Objective: To assess the knowledge, attitude and practices of family planning among eligible couples. Design: Cross sectional study. Setting: Hatta, Imphal east, Manipur. Duration: Sept.2007 to August 2008. Participants: Eligible couples. Results: 825 eligible couples participated in the study with a response rate of 99.28%. Mean age at marriage of wives and husbands were 19.12 and 24.14 years (SD±7.179 and 8.491) respectively. Majority of husbands (85.8%) and wives (84.6%) knew of family planning and media was the main source of information. 54.42% of husbands disapproved family planning (p=0.000) and only 16.73% of the couples were using family planning methods. Main reasons for not adopting family planning methods were family disharmony (19.5%), religious prohibition (17.8%) and adverse effects (8.0%). Logistic regression analysis revealed that one year increase in age of wives there was likelihood of having 4% increases in adopting family planning methods. Similarly, occupations of wives other than housewife had 27% and from illiterate to literate 3% more chance of adopting family planning methods. CONCLUSION: Adopting low family planning methods among the eligible couples was mainly due to husband's disapproval thinking that it may cause family disharmony, religion prohibition and fear of adverse effects. And also other important associated