Assessment Of Factors Hindering Family Planning Service Utilisation Among Women Of Reproductive Age In Mubende Town Council

ABSTRACT In Uganda about 755,000 women get unintended pregnancies each year, many of which end up in abortion and about 6,000 women die as a result of pregnancy related complications. A significant proportion of these deaths occur because women are not able to have healthy planned pregnancies and according to the Uganda Demographic and Health Survey, 41% of married women wish to space their pregnancies or want to stop child bearing altogether but are not using family planning methods because of the unmet need for family planning which include; fear of side effects, lack of knowledge and lack of access to family planning supplies. The purpose of the study was to establish the factors hindering family planning utilization in Mubende town council. It was found that women were highly aware of family planning and its benefits and many had ever used family planning methods ( 87.50%), but the dropout rate was high (21.30% ) especially among married women (31.50%) due to lack of sustained information and counseling about FP , difficulties in accessing FP services, associated side effects (63.1% ),negative attitude towardssome contraceptive methods(11.20%), scarcity of FP supplies(28.80%) and few working hours at the available health centers(open late and close early). One of the nurses at a health units at MTC reported that the health unit hardly gets adequate supply of contraceptive methods visa vie the demand population and always experienced stock outs of the methods. Also there are two healthcentre II’s that covers a population of 45,056 people in MTC which are insufficient to meet the demand and to offer family planning methods that require highly skilled expertise. Also long distance to the health units affect accessibility (12.5%) and financial constraints (13.80%) because family planning services in private clinics have to be paid for. Many women use family planning in secrecy, thus inject plan which offers protection for a long duration (3months) was the commonly preferred because pills are hard to hide from spouses who are not supportive(42.5%). Among those using family planning only 23.50% had supportive husbands. Therefore, despite the high knowledge about family planning and its initial utilization among women of reproductive age in MTC, there is a high dropout especially among married women, there is inadequate supplies of family planning in the few lower level health units that are x understaffed, open few hours and cannot offer family planning services which require specialized expertise. In conclusion, there is need of continuous counseling about family planning, need improve awareness and participation of men in family planning services, government should Improve on family planning delivery through staffing the health units ensuring that there are no stock outs