Unmet Need for Family Planning Among Women of Reproductive Age Living in Makadara Division, Nairobi County, Kenya.

ABSTRACT

Throughout the whole world, the unmet need for family planning data has become a very useful tool in measuring and predicting the contraceptive needs of a population. Access to family planning services and awareness has improved greatly, but the unmet need for family planning continues to remain high. Kenya is one of the fastest growing countries in population worldwide mainly due to low contraceptive use and high unmet need for family planning. In this study, the proportion of unmet needs for family planning and the factors responsible for this unmet need for family planning among women of reproductive age in Makadara Division, Nairobi County, Kenya were determined. Few research studies have been done to investigate the unmet need for family planning for the past years creating a need for investigation with the aim of informing health services interventions. In the study, a community-based cross sectional household survey was conducted. A total of 196 study participants of women of reproductive age (15- 49years) from Makadara Division were selected through cluster sampling. All participants were interviewed using a pre tested structured questionnaire modeled on KDHS. The data collected was analysed using SPSS version 20. The Westoff model revealed that the total unmet need for family planning was 17%; 12% for birth spacing and 5% for birth limiting. Multivariate regression revealed that the unmet need was significantly associated with age, region of residence, experience of child loss, education level, partner’s education level and knowledge level on contraceptives (p < 0.05). The unmet need for family planning was still quite high among the respondents and associated with various determinants that should be considered while planning for scaling-up healthcare program. To address this current high level of unmet need for family planning in urban regions, the county government should focus on promoting level of education beyond primary level, improve maternal and child healthcare, and adopt region and age specific programmatic actions in order to reduce unmet need to an acceptable level.