A comparative study between met & unmet need groups of contraception in rural area of Maharashtra, India

Objectives To compare met & unmet need groups of contraception with socio-economic, demographic, accessibility & family Planning (FP) related factors. Methods Community based cross-sectional, comparative study was conducted among 363 married women of reproductive age groups in rural area selected by stratified simple random technique. After collecting preliminary information, the study population then divided into two groups based on their contraceptive use i.e. MET Group & UNMET NEED Groups. Then the role of socio-economic, demographic, accessibility & family Planning (FP) related factors were studies to determine contraceptive use between these groups. Results Meanageofstudysubjectswas24.12±4.45years&averagenumber of children per women was 2.02. Males were more literate than females (69.1% Vs 47.2%). 51.8% women were belonging to lower socio-economic status. Early marriages were still prevalent in this study (53.7%). Prevalence of met group of contraception was 59.2% & that of unmet need for contraception was 44.1%. Met groups were mainly from 20-29 years age group (46.6%); most of them (46.8%) were literate & were from high socio-economic group (30.9%) compared to unmet need groups. On comparison to unmet groups, most of the met group (33.9%) got married after 18 years of age, residing within 5km area (26.4%), had visited to FP centre (49.0%) & ever visited by FP staff (43.3%). Conclusion Education, income, marriage age, accessibility, FP staff related factors definitely has role among met & unmet need groups in their contraceptive use