Zeitschrift für klinische Fallberichte

Prevalence and Determinants of Contraceptive Use among Married Women of Reproductive Age in Somaliland

Abstract

Deka Mustapha Mohammed, Denekew Bitew Belay and Awoke Seyoum Tegegne

Background: The practice of contraception remains unpopular in Somaliland often attributed to cultural barriers, and misconceptions associated with practice of contraception, all of which discourage women from accessing reproductive health services. This study aimed to assess the prevalence and associated factors with the practice of contraception among married women of reproductive age in Somaliland.

Methods: The data consists of 2304 married women; only 169 (7.3%) of these women were practicing contraception of any kind. The data source for the analysis was the 2020 SLDHS data, which is secondary. A multilevel binary logistic regression model with random intercept and fixed slope models was used in the current investigation.

Results: Among the respondents in the study area, only 7.3% of them practiced contraception of any kind. Among the predictor variables, urban residence, husband’s support, and secondary education and above, wealth, skilled/manual occupations, awareness of methods, completion of family, women who had access to mass media, and those women visited by FP workers significantly encourage the practice of contraception in the study area. On the other hand, lack of husband’s support (AOR=0.8684, p-value<0.01), lower education (AOR=0.8390, p-value<0.01), women who had no access to mass media (AOR=0.7845, p-value=0.0451) and women not visited by the FP worker (AOR=0.3970, p-value=0.04162) were associated with the less practice of contraception and having a desire of more children in the study area.

Conclusion: The strong patriarchal culture is one of the factors in which husbands do not play a major role in contraceptive choices because of the presence of women empowerment to use the long-term contraception method. Close communication between husband and wife and the socialization of LARC by health workers is expected to increase its use is another methods used to reduce the influence of husbands on contraception use. For those individuals who can’t get access of mass media, family planning campaigns play significant role in implementing contraception.