TITLE:
Women’s Attitudes and Knowledge towards the Use of Contraceptive Methods
AUTHORS:
Emmanuel Gasaba, Fiona Niyomana, Felicité Irakoze, Edith Baramana, Anitha Ndayizeye, Ismaël Nicoyishimiye, Edouard Niyongabo
KEYWORDS:
Contraceptive Method, Family Planning, Women, Attitude, Knowledge
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Journal of Nursing,
Vol.11 No.1,
January
18,
2021
ABSTRACT: Background: Contraceptive use reduces the need for abortion by preventing unwanted pregnancies, and the causes of maternal death worldwide. Contraceptive use helps women to plan their pregnancies and contributes for population growth. This study aims to analyze the attitudes and knowledge of the women attending Van Norma Clinic for the use of contraceptive methods. Methods: A cross-sectional study was used to analyze the information. A convenience sampling method has been used to select the 100 women who attended Van Norman Clinic in Family planning service in the period of the study of four months (April to July, 2020). A self-administered questionnaire with four parameters addressing importance of using contraceptive methods, the factors affecting the women’s attitudes for not using contraceptive methods, types of contraceptive methods currently used, advantages and disadvantages of using contraceptive methods was used to collect data. Results: Research findings show that the majority of respondents knew the importance of using contraceptive methods like preventing unwanted pregnancies (97%), spacing pregnancies (96%), planning pregnancies (92%), and getting well (70%). Two factors affecting women for not using contraceptive methods had been identified such as religion (73%) and fear (70%). In addition, the women attending Van Norman Clinic prefer using implants (99%) and injectable (99%). It is clear that women do not know the consequences related to the nonuse of contraceptive methods. Some recommendations have been made to the health care facilities, parents, women themselves, churches’ leaders and government in general. Conclusion: Factors which influence women’s attitudes for not using contraceptive methods were notified in our study such as religion (73.0%) and fear (70.0%) which was explained by the fact that in Burundi most people are catholic which is the most religion prohibiting the use of contraceptive methods. However, the participants’ knowledge was significantly good as their score was more than 50% for all variables.