Unmet Needs of Family Planning among Urban and Rural Population of Coimbatore District and Factors Influencing it: A Cross Sectional Analytical study

Recent programs have strategies, which focuses on meeting, rather than trying to change people‘s needs and aspirations. ❖ An analytical cross sectional study among a sample of 500 currently married women of reproductive age group (15-49) among the urban and rural populations of Coimbatore district . ❖ A structured pre tested proforma, recommended for survey of family planning programs was used for the study. The developed schedule has four parts comprising of the background characteristics of the respondent, marital status and fertility, knowledge and attitude to contraception and use of contraceptives and perceived availability and accessibility of contraceptives (Annexure II). ❖ Contraceptive prevalence rate among the study population was 56%. Among the users, IUDs, condom, injectable and OCPs were used in 23.4%, 4.7%, 5.2% and 14.2% respectively.. Unmet need for contraception is found to be 10.2%., accounting 8% in urban to 12.4% in rural population. There were 5.5% Respondents, who had used any method of contraception in the past of currently not using any. Among them beside the reason to have a child in 36.36%, health reasons were seen in 60.6%. ❖ There were 28.9% respondents who had never used a contraception within this group. There were reasons of opposition from husband family members in 8.6%, fear of side effect was seen in 67.6% of them. ❖ The unmet need for contraception was seen in 10.2% of the total respondents giving a total need for planning in the area as 66.6% (56.4 + 10.2) ie. contraceptive usage termed as met need and unmet need respectively. Among the reasons for unmet need, fear of health reasons c❖ ontributes to 67.6%. The other reasons that were found we opposition from partner and family, lack of choice, low perceived risk and religions reasons, and some minimal untoward events encountered in previous contraceptive usage. RECOMMENDATIONS: In general data on unmet need provide overall direction by helping to pin point the obstacles in society and weakness in services that need to be overcome. From this study the following are recommended. 1. A minimum period of two–three years (between the first and second pregnancies) can be fixed by the government for availing benefit schemes, provided by the government. 2. Women need to be counselled on the full range of available methods so that they can choose the method that best matches their individual circumstances and intentions and can change methods when they need to. 3. Women who are post partum, breast feeding, or approaching menopause need counselling on their likelihood of becoming pregnant and on the family planning methods that might be appropriate for them. 4. Women need correct information on contraceptive methods, especially on side effects and its management. 5. Programs should be planned so as to improve interpersonal relations between clients and providers and to ensure periodic follow-up of clients to reduce the number of women who stop using contraception. LIMITATIONS: 1. Only a selected population was sampled for the study. 2. The study is entirely based on the response given by the subjects, and hence the authenticity of the respondents in answering the interview becomes subjective. 3. The sample may not be the exact miniature of the general population and hence the results arrived at may not exactly project to the data for the entire district