Reproductive Health Issues and Assessment of Knowledge, Attitude and Practice (KAP) on Family Planning (FP) among Rohingya Female Refugees

Abstract

Introduction: Reproductive health issues are responsible for one-third of health problems among women. Having lack of access to contraception is one of the major risk factors. Woman refugees often face discrimination and they have limited access to basic needs including healthcare. These have caused an increase to the woman’s reproductive health issues. Objectives: Along with identifying the reproductive health issues, this study aims to evaluate family planning (FP) through assessment of three components of knowledge, attitude and practice. Methodology: This study is a cross-sectional study involving Rohingya female refugees attending the Islamic Medical Association of Malaysia (IMAM) Response and Relief Team (IMARET) Mobile Clinic in Selayang, Selangor, Malaysia. Data collection was done through questionnaires with the help of trained translators. Results and Discussions: Reproductive health issue has a minor and negative correlation with all three domains of Knowledge, Attitude and Practice of family planning, (r = -0.11, r = -0.22, and r = -0.18, p > 0.05) respectively. Out of 86 respondents only (n = 7, 8.1%) had at least one reproductive health issue, whereas none reported having sexually transmitted diseases. The most common reproductive health issues reported were pre-eclampsia and gestational diabetes (n = 5, 71.4% respectively). Knowledge on contraception methods was poor in the Rohingya female refugees while the practice of contraceptive in this study was only 33.7%. Among the contraception methods used, almost half (n = 15, 51.7%) have used contraceptive pills followed by injection (n = 8, 27.6%), whereas the least practiced method was condoms (n = 2, 6.9%). This study finds that 57% of the respondents had positive attitudes towards family planning. Majority (n = 53, 61.6%) agreed on the use of contraception to control birth interval and more than half of the respondents (n = 54, 62.8%) said that the benefit of contraception outweighs the negative effects. Conclusion: Limited knowledge and practice of contraception methods were found among the Rohingya female refugees, however, majority showed positive attitude on family planning. In conclusion, there is urgent need to improve the family planning education among the Rohingya female refugees to increase practice of contraceptives. This study is of guiding significance for improving the reproductive health of refugee women, but there are still some problems in the article, which need to be revised.