Background: By 2050, the worlds population is expected to reach 9 billion. India accounts for 17.5% of the worlds population. In the year 2011, the couple protection rate was about 40% for India, which is still far behind to achieve the 60% couple protection rate goal. Since the inception of the program, several knowledge, attitude, and practice studies have been conducted.
Objective: To assess the knowledge, attitude, and practices of the family planning methods and various sociodemographic parameters and enhance the contraceptive practice among the eligible couples in an urban area of Haryana.
Materials and Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted in an urban health-training center area of Rohtak district, Haryana. The study participants involved were currently married women aged 1545 years (eligible couples). The line listing of all the eligible couples was done, and by systematic random sampling methodology, 10% of the currently married women were selected, which came out to be 320. Statistical analysis was done using SPSS software, version 16.0 (Statistical Package for the Social Sciences); we calculated percentages and applied the X2-test wherever necessary and required.
Results: In this study, the total sample consisted of 318 participants, and the mean age of the participants was 32.76 ± 4.6 years. Moving to other variables, it was observed in this study that most of the participants were presenting socioeconomic status (SES) as middle class (35.7%) and lower-middle class (37.2%), followed by upper-middle class (19.6%), and the least participants belonged to the upper class (3.3%) and lower class (4.2%). Around 62% participants were currently using one or more of the various family planning methods. Female sterilization (45.6%) was the most common chosen method used among the contraceptive users, followed by intrauterine contraceptive device (23%) and condom (22%); the least preference was given to oral contraceptive pill (OCP) (9.2%). When asked specifically regarding the individual type of family planning method, most awareness was toward OCP (97.7%) and the least awareness observed for the traditional methods (30.5%). The awareness source for family planning methods were mainly doctors/multipurpose health workers/anganwadi workers (70.4%).
Conclusion: On the basis of observations of our study, it was concluded that education and contraceptive practices were directly related. Health workers and mass media are playing very important roles in disseminating information about the promotion of contraceptive practices and can overcome the knowledge/practice gap.
Key words: Family planning, eligible couples, female sterilization
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