Assessment of factors associated with contraceptive use among women aged 15-49 years in Uganda

Abstract

The study assessed contraceptive use among women in reproductive age in Uganda specifically looking at association between socio-demographic factors of women, partners and households’ characteristics with contraceptive use using UDHS 2016 data. A total of 7556 women aged 15 to 49 years were considered for the study majority of the women were aged 25 to 39 years (57%), had attained only primary education (62%) and residing in rural areas (77%). With regard to household characteristics, most of the women had 1 to 6 children (81%), were residing in rural areas (79%) and were from non-poor households (58%). Most of the women their partners were aged 30 to 49 years (64%) and had attained only primary education (53%). On the aspect of awareness and use of contraceptives almost all the women (99%) knew modern family planning methods. About the use 51% were using modern family planning methods and it was mainly a joint decision between the woman and husband. For the 44% that were not using any method, 41% the decision was mainly done by the woman and still the same percentage 42% was done jointly between the two. At bivariate analysis, chi-square results showed that that age, education level, number of living children, place of residence, wealth quintile religion, partner's age and education level significantly influenced use of contraceptives. These characteristics were taken for further analysis using binary logistic regression, results age, education level of woman, number of living children, wealth quintile, place of residence and education level of the partner were significantly associated with use of contraceptives among women where by women that were aged 20 to 49 years, had attained at least primary education, with at least one child, from urban areas, poor households, Anglican and whose partners had attained primary education were more likely to contraceptives The researcher recommends government and other stakeholders like NGOs to increase on the support for family planning especially to women in poor families in order to increase of their use of contraceptives. More so, there is need to educate women and their partners especially those that did not attain higher levels of education about the usefulness of family planning and how access family planning methods in order to encourage use of contraceptive.