TITLE:
Unmet Needs for Family Planning among Adolescent Girls Giving Birth in Three Teaching Hospitals in Yaoundé
AUTHORS:
Florent Ymele Fouelifack, Christiane Catherine Ticki Mengue, Mosman Anyimbi Ofeh, Loic Dongmo Fouelifa, Jeanne Hortence Fouedjio
KEYWORDS:
Adolescent Girls, Unmet Need, Family Planning
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology,
Vol.12 No.8,
August
25,
2022
ABSTRACT: Many adolescent girls are pressured into having sex at an early age,
which puts them at high risk of unwanted pregnancies and unsafe abortions. The
overall objective of this study was to evaluate the unmet needs of adolescents who give birth. A descriptive cross-sectional study
was carried out in three university
hospitals in Yaoundé, Cameroon: Yaoundé Central Hospital, Yaoundé Gyneco-Obstetrics
and Pediatric Hospital and the District Hospital of Biyem-Assi, from
February 1, 2020 to June 30, 2020. Included were any teenage mothers speaking
English or French. Data were entered using CSPRO 7.3, analyzed by Excel 2010
and SPSS version 23.0. The tools used to express our results were the number,
the frequency, the mean, the odds ratio (OR) and the P. P was significant if
less than 5%. Of a total of 2692 births recorded, 188 (7%) were from
adolescents. Of these, 157 fulfilling our selection criteria were recruited and
data analyzed. The average age of the participants was 17.9 ± 1.12 years with
extremes of 13 and 19, the average parity was 1.2 ± 0.4 with extremes of 1 and
3. Out of 157 participants, 2 who fell in the age range of 10 to 14 years
(100%) and 106 of 155 (68.4%) whose age ranged from 15 to 19 years had unmet
need for family planning. Only unmarried participants had unmet needs after
multivariate analysis [aOR 2.4 (1.1 - 5.3); p = 0.035)]. Being unmarried was
independently associated with the occurrence of unmet needs. The
intensification of campaigns for provider behavior changes communication and the creation of services dedicated
to the sexual and reproductive health of adolescents would help to
reduce the rate of unmet needs for family planning among adolescent girls.