Unmet need for family planning among women in rural Egypt

Abstract

Background: Although Egypt has a strong family planning program; the downward trend in the unmet need has been reversed recently. Thus the present study aimed to assess the magnitude of unmet need for family planning, its common reasons and the associated factors among women of reproductive age group.Methods: this is a community-based cross sectional household survey study conducted in Awish El-Hagar village, Mansoura, Egypt during the year 2015-2016. Using an interviewer questionnaire; 394 rural women in childbearing period were surveyed via a systematic random sampling technique with the help of the outreach community health workers affiliated to Awish El-Hagar family medicine center.Results: The overall prevalence rates of unmet need for family planning and contraceptive use were 11.2% and 69.5% respectively, while the total demand for family planning was 80.7%. Infrequent sex (27.3%), fear from the side effects (25%) and husband opposition (15.9%) were the most frequent reasons for non-use of family planning methods among unmet need women. Logistic regressions explored that risk factors for unmet need women were having husband disapproved family planning, having only girls, perception that having >3 children to be ideal, working, having husband with the main family planning decision maker, with no past history of unintended pregnancy and having only boys.Conclusions: A considerable proportion of Egyptian women still have an unmet need for family planning that need to be addressed by more effective family planning and health education programs together with improving counseling strategies and enforcing the role of outreach workers.