Dual Contraception Among Sexually Active Females For Protection Against Pregnancy And HIV/STI

ABSTRACT

 Dual contraception or dual method refers to the use of condom with hormonal contraceptives or an intrauterine device to ensure enhanced protection and prevention of both unintended pregnancies and STI/HIV. When used consistently and correctly, it is capable of ensuring healthy sexual life devoid of the challenges of morbidity and mortality associated with unprotected sex. Notwithstanding, the extent of the use of dual contraceptives method use in Ghana is not known. The overarching objective of this research was to assess the knowledge, extent of use, reasons for use and factors affecting dual contraception among sexually active females within the ages of 18 – 49 years in the La-Nkwantanang-Madina Municipality. This was a community-based cross-sectional survey that involved the use of multi-stage random sampling to select study participants. Structured questionnaires were administered to elicit information on the use of dual contraception during their last sexual encounter, knowledge, and challenges of access to dual contraception services. Data were entered into Microsoft Excel 2013 and analyzed with Stata version 13. Bivariate and multivariate logistic regression analysis were performed to establish associations between variables. The prevalence of dual contraceptive utilization was found to be 12.9% among sexually active females. Among the never married (single) dual contraceptive utilization was 11.9%, married 15.0% and among the separated, divorced and widowed prevalence was 13.0%. Prevalence of general contraceptive use was 54.2% with 48.3% among the never married and 60.0% among the married. Controlling for age, marital status and occupation, the odds of a respondent using dual method of contraception is 3.3 times as great as the odds of that respondent using a condom [aOR = 3.3 (95% CI = 1.41 – 7.50), p