Impact of Parity of Women on their Uptake of Family Planning in Rural and Urban Areas of FCT, Nigeria

Abstract

There is a need for an improvement in the uptake of family planning by women of childbearing age due to the high number of births observed in Nigeria. There are several factors that play an important role in the use of family planning, and among the factors is the number of children delivered by a woman. This cross-sectional study was conducted among 480 women of childbearing age in two different settings (rural and urban), the association between the number of children by these women and the women’s attitude and uptake of family planning was studied. At p-value <0.05, a statistical significance was observed in the association between the number of children and the women’s attitude in the rural setting with X2=43.661, p = 0.02, and among the women in the urban setting with X2 = 44.189, p = 0.02. A statistical significance was observed for their uptake of family planning in the rural setting only with X2 = 10.343, p = 0.32, while no significance was observed for their uptake of family planning in the urban setting. This study showed that most women who have delivered one child or more have a good attitude toward the uptake of family planning. It showed that women’s attitudes and uptake of family planning could be influenced by the number of children they already have or the family size. Family planning program strategies and family planning messages targeting women who have large family sizes should be created. Keywords: Family planning, Rural, Urban, Uptake, Women of childbearing age.