Prevalence and Factors Associated with Modern Contraceptive Uptake among Women of Reproductive Age (15-49) Attending the Jinja Regional Referral Hospital in the Jinja District

Abstract

Modern contraception, a pillar of safe motherhood is known for its benefits including limiting unwanted pregnancies and reducing infant and maternal mortality and morbidity. Modern contraception significantly reduces up to 35% of maternal deaths, 13% of child mortalities and up to 25% of under-five mortalities. This research aimed to explore factors associated with the utilization of modern contraceptive methods among women of reproductive age (15- 49) attending the Jinja regional referral hospital in the Jinja district. The study involved the use of a descriptive cross-sectional study design and a total of 365 randomly selected women of reproductive age (15-49) at Jinja Regional Referral Hospital were enrolled into the study. Data on the current use of modern contraceptives and related factors were collected using a researcher-administered questionnaire after which the data was checked for completeness and analyzed using the statistical package for social sciences (SPSS) software version 25. Factors associated with modern contraceptive utilization were determined using logistic regression analysis and Chi2 square test while statistical significance was determined at pvalue≤0.05 and 95% confidence interval. We enrolled a total of 365 study participants. The prevalence of modern contraceptive uptake was found to be 30.14%. Factors associated with modern contraception uptake included age, marital status, parity, number of living children, age of the youngest child, caesarean delivery, and discussion of modern contraceptive use with partner. After adjusting for possible confounders, multivariate logistic regression analysis showed that only the age of the youngest child and the expected time to have another child significantly influenced modern contraceptive use. Modern contraceptive use in this study was low and independently associated with the age of the youngest child and the expected time to have another child. More efforts need to increase modern contraceptive uptake. Keywords: Modern contraception, Safe motherhood, Unwanted pregnancies, women of reproductive age, maternal deaths.