Assessing the level of utilization of family planning services in Offinso District of Ashanti Region, Ghana.
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Date
2001-12-13
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Abstract
This study was undertaken to “identify the factors that are responsible for the low utilisation of family planning services in Offinso district” and to design interventions to increase coverage of the service in the district.
A record study, focus group discussion and structured interviews were the methods employed to gather information. A total of 150 people including males and females within the ages of 15 - 49 were randomly selected and interviewed. Respondents had an average age of 26 years and were mostly illiterates. The average number of children per respondent was 4. 50% of these respondents were Roman Catholics. Factors such as age, education, parity, marital status and religion accounted for the differences in the levels of knowledge, attitude and practice.
On the average, knowledge about family planning in the district was 64% indicating average, attitude towards family planning practise was 72.7% This was quite high. The practice was 10.7%, which was poor.
The study unveiled a host of factors, which accounted for the low utilisation of family planning services in the district. Notably, misconceptions, inadequate service outlets, economic, and social and other factors were all identified as stumbling blocks to family planning practice.
To arrest this unfortunate situation, 7 broad areas of intervention have been proposed. These are training, male involvement, family life education for secondary school students, supply and subsidy of contraceptives, advocacy and further research on side effects. The information gathered bus been disseminated to stakeholders to assist them in their efforts aimed at recruiting more family planning acceptors to utilise the services.
Description
A Thesis Submitted To The Department Of Community Health, School of Medical Sciences, Kwame Nkrumah University Of Science And Technology, Kumasi, in partial fulfilment of the
requirement for the degree of Master of science in Health Services Planning and Management, 2001