Spatial Analysis of Socio-Economic and Demographic Factors Associated with Contraceptive Use among Women of Childbearing Age in Rwanda.

Faustin Habyarimana,Shaun Ramroop

doi:10.3390/ijerph15112383

Abstract

Contraceptive use is considered as essential for protecting women’s health and rights, influencing fertility and population growth, and helping to promote economic development. The main objective of this study was to analysis the factors and spatial correlates of contraceptive use among women of childbearing age. The 2015 Rwanda Demographic and Health Survey (RDHS) data were used to identify the factors associated with contraceptive use in Rwanda. A Bayesian geo-additive model was used in order to account for fixed effects, nonlinear effects, spatial and random effects inherent in the data. The overall prevalence of use of any contraceptive method among married women of childbearing age in Rwanda was 52.7%. A woman’s age, wealth quintile, level of education, working status, number of living children, and exposure to the media was found to increase contraceptive use. The findings from the study also found disparities in contraceptive use at provincial and district level, where prevalence was higher in districts of Northern provinces and lower in districts of western provinces. The findings of this study suggest that exposure to information on contraceptive use in health centres, empowerment of women to access quality contraceptive-use services and religions to play an important role in explaining and informing their adherents on the importance of using a contraceptive method.

Highlights

Contraceptive use is considered as essential for protecting women’s health and rights, influencing fertility and population growth, and helping to promote economic development, especially in sub-Saharan Africa
Most of the respondents were from rural areas (83%) and 17.0% were from urban areas. It is observed in the same table that 55.0% of respondents had heard about family planning on the radio, 7.1% on TV and 6.1% in newspapers or magazines
The present study found positive and negative structured spatial effects on contraceptive use among women of reproductive age in Rwanda

Summary

Introduction

Contraceptive use is considered as essential for protecting women’s health and rights, influencing fertility and population growth, and helping to promote economic development, especially in sub-Saharan Africa. It helps to determine the number of children in the family and enhances adequate child spacing [1,2]. Some contraceptive methods such as condoms help, for family planning purposes, and to prevent sexually transmitted infections, for instance, HIV, among others. Young women confront many problems in contraceptive method use, mainly in family planning services, for instance, fear of side effects, cost, and lack of enough information [5]. Contraception use and family planning are essential for improving the health of the population. Many United Nations member countries, especially those in the developed world, have strong family planning programmes, this is not the case in some sub-Saharan African countries, some sub-regions of Asia and Latin America

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Discussion

Conclusion