Waka A Udezi
,
Modupe O Akpata
For correspondence:- Waka Udezi Email: tonywaka@uniben.edu Tel: +2348037102111
Published: 31 December 2016
Citation: Udezi WA, Akpata MO. Perception of a sample of pregnant women towards contraception. J Sci Pract Pharm 2016; 3(1):121-127 doi: 10.47227/jsppharm.v3i1.7
© 2016 The author(s).
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Purpose: The use of contraception is not yet widespread. Therefore, the objective of this study is to investigate the perception of a sample of pregnant women towards contraception.
Methods: A 22 item questionnaire was developed to collect data from pregnant women visiting two ante- natal clinics in Benin City, Nigeria. Responses to the items showing thelevel of agreement with the statements related to contraception was anchored on a scale of 1-5 where 1 = strongly disagree and 5 = strongly agree. The cut-off point was set at 3.0 such that scores <3.0 are considered unfavourable perception. Cronbach alpha was determined. Principal component analysis employed Varimax rotation and Kaiser normalization with listwise deletion of missing data. A Likert summation of scores was used in calculating perception scores for all items and extracted components. The relationship between demographic factors and extracted components was further explored using inferential analysis such as Student t-tests and One-Way ANOVA as appropriate. P-values <0.05 were interpreted as significant.
Results: The response rate was about 92%. A majority of the respondents were married while 30% had no children. Six subscales were extracted from which the component that states that family planning improves women’s health had the highest score of 4.5 ± 0.9 compared to a summary perception score of 3.55 ± 1.22 for all study participants. However, only about 31.0% (184/600) of the women had used a birth control method prior to getting pregnant. Two items that imply that family planning methods do not always work and that the study participants have an inherent preference for natural methods of birth control had low perception scores <3.0. Cronbach’s alpha was approximately 0.7 and no significant difference was found between perception and actual use of family planning methods.
Conclusion: Despite a slightly favourable perception towards contraception, actual use of birth control methods appears to be low. This may be as a result of doubts about the efficacy of family planning methods and an inherent preference for natural methods of contraception. Development of intervention strategies to encourage use should put these findings into consideration
