Patterns of contraceptive behaviour and the delivery of family planning services in Lesotho

This study aims at examining social and demographic factors which affect the contraceptive behaviour of Basotho women, as well as the effect of the delivery of family planning services.The study is based on both quantitative and qualitative data. Information provided by the 1995 Lesotho Safe Motherhood Initiative Women's Health Survey (LSMI-WHS) was used to analyse factors affecting contraceptive use, method choice and reasons for contraceptive non-use in Lesotho. Multilevel models were applied to separate the variation in the response of interest into variation attributable to individual level factors and community factors.The results show that use of contraception in Lesotho is low: 29 percent of women exposed to the risk of conception use contraception. The choice of methods is restricted to injectables and pills: both used by about 70 percent of all users. Lack of information and health consideration are major barriers to contraceptive use. Contraceptive behaviour is a function of the characteristics of individual women and the characteristics of the communities in which they live. The educational level of women, their age, marital status, number of living children and their partners' education and work status are important individual factors affecting patterns of contraceptive behaviour. Characteristics pertaining to both the service delivery points and the providers are important in influencing contraceptive use and reasons given for contraceptive non-use but only characteristics pertaining to providers are important in affecting method choice.The findings suggest that strategies aimed at promoting the use of contraceptive methods in Lesotho should be those recognising the differences between individual women and the difference in the delivery of family planning services between communities.