The Analysis of Socio-Economic and Demographic Factors Associated with Contraceptive Use Among Married Women of Reproductive Age in Rwanda

Faustin Habyarimana,Shaun Ramroop

doi:10.2174/1874944501811010348

Abstract

Background: Contraceptive use is seen as pivotal 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 identify the socio-economic and demographic factors associated with contraceptive use among married women of childbearing age in Rwanda. Methods: The current study used survey logistic regression model in order to account for the complexity of sampling design and heterogeneity between the observations from the same cluster. The 2014/2015 Rwanda Demographic and Health Survey data was used as application. Results: The findings from this study revealed that education level of the woman, wealth quintile of the household, woman’s province of residence, woman’s age at first cohabitation, current age of the respondent, woman’s working status, number of living children, husband’s desire for more children compared to the wife or partner, religious affiliation, health facilities, exposure to contraceptive information in media and by family planning workers, and current age of husband or partner were significant determinants of contraceptive use among ever married women of reproductive age. Conclusion: The findings from this study suggest improvement of exposure to the information of contraceptive use in health centres, empowerment of women for access to quality contraceptive use services and religious affiliation to play an important role to explain and inform their adherents on the importance of using a contraceptive method.

Highlights

Contraceptive use is seen as pivotal 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 identify the socio-economic and demographic factors associated with contraceptive use among married women or women living with their partners of reproductive age in Rwanda
The findings from this study revealed that education level of the woman, wealth index of the household, province of residence, age at first cohabitation, her current age, her working status, the number of living children, preference of number of children by husband or partner compared to that of the wife or partner, religious affiliation, exposure to information on family planning were determinants of contraceptive use among married women or women living with partner of reproductive age

Summary

Introduction

Contraceptive use is seen as pivotal for protecting women’s health and rights, influencing fertility and population growth, and helping to promote economic development. Contraceptive use is seen as pivotal for protecting women’s health and rights, influencing fertility and population growth, and helping to promote economic development especially in Sub-Saharan Africa. The findings from various studies showed that satisfying a woman’s need for contraception, especially in family planning, may reduce the fertility rate by a considerable amount [4, 5]. Young women face many problems for utilizing contraceptive methods, especially family planning services, such as fear of side effects, cost, and lack of knowledge [6]. Contraception and family planning are known as the key for improving the health of the population because of their benefits. Even though many United Nations member countries, those in the developed world, have strong family planning programmes, this is not the case in most sub-Saharan African countries, in some sub regions of Asia and Latin America and Caribbean, where despite a rise in contraceptive prevalence, many women continue to have unmet needs for contraceptives [7, 8]

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Conclusion