Utilization Of Long-Term And Permanent Family Planning Methods Among Family Planning Clients At Westlands Health Facilities, Nairobi County,Kenya

ABSTRACT

Access to family planning services and contraception is critical with the world‟s population currently at seven billion inhabitants. Unfortunately close to 250 million people do not have the means to control their fertility. According to KDHS of 2014, Kenya has a total fertility rate of 3.9%, the Contraceptive prevalence rate of 58 % and unmet need for family planning of 18 %. A discrepancy exists between the proportion of women who know about long-term and permanent family planning methods which are effective for 3 to 12 years or permanent contraception depending with the method of choice and those who utilize them as a choice of contraception. The objective of this study, therefore, was to assess the utilization of longterm/acting and permanent methods of family planning among women of reproductive age seeking birth control from Westlands Sub-county health facilities. The research design employed was a facility based cross-sectional service exit survey and Proportionate sampling technique used to collect data from eight service delivery points (health facilities) owned by the city-county government of Nairobi. 381 women of reproductive age who utilized contraceptives and met the eligibility criteria were identified through systematic sampling. Structured interview questionnaires for family planning clients and focused group discussion guide for service providers were used to collect data. Data was analyzed by SPSS version 19. Bivariate analysis was done to determine factorsinfluencing use of long-term and permanent methods of contraceptives and variables which were found to be significant at p values of