Influence Of Sociodemographic Characteristics On Knowledge And Acceptability Of Female Condom Use By Women Visiting Mch/ Fp Clinics In Kisumu East Sub-County Hospital, Kenya

ABSTRACT

The female condom (FC) was developed as an alternative to male condom as a means to empower women so that they could have control over their own protection against STIs and unintended pregnancies. Despite serious campaign programs to sensitize women of reproductive age to take up contraception and provision of contraceptives in public health facilities the use of modern contraceptives is still low at 37.6% raising the need for more efforts to make modern contraceptive use more widespread among women in urban Kenya.The MCH/FP clinics provide a window of opportunity for service providers to promote contraceptive use among mothers.The FC is an

effective modern contraceptive offered in MCH/FP clinics in preventing mother to child

transmission (PMTCT) of HIV and reducing maternal and child morbidity and mortality. Although the FC was introduced in 1993, low level of knowledge still remains even among health care providers; the FC remains limited not widely available and under utilised.Therefore low use of the

FC could be due to failure of delivery of the information by healthcare providers, low accessibility

or low popularity of the product among women. This study sought to assess influence of sociodemographic characteristics on knowledge and acceptability of FC use by women visiting MCH/FP clinics in Kisumu East sub-County Hospital. The specific objectives were to evaluate influence of sociodemographic characteristics on knowledge, on acceptability and to identify barriers of FC use by women visiting MCH/FP clinics in Kisumu East sub-County Hospital. This

study adopted a cross sectional study design where s imple random sampling was used to select a

sample size of 438 women of reproductive age calculated using Yamane formula ( Yamane , 1967 )).

Q uestionnaires were administered among women and K ey I nformant I nte rview (KII) was conducted

among f emale nurses. Data from KII were analyzed thematically. Proportions were determined using chi-square analysis.Multivariate logistic regression was used to determine associations. Sociodemographic characteristics was regressed against knwoledge on and acceptability of female condom use. Statistical significance was assessed at p