Community based study on married couples' family planning knowledge, attitude and practice in rural and urban Gambia
Sulayman S S Jammeh1, Chieh-Yu Liu2, Su-Fen Cheng2
1Reproductive and child health program, Ministry of health, Banjul, The Gambia, West Africa ; College of Nursing, National Taipei University of Nursing and Health Sciences, Taipei, Taiwan, ROC.
Background:
Family planning services have been free of charge and available in all the health facilities in the Gambia since 1975 yet contraceptive prevalence is only 17.5% and even 6% in some areas. Since the last census in 2003, there existed no available data on married couples' contraception status.
Objectives:
To explore married couples' family planning knowledge, attitudes, and practices in rural and urban Gambia and to analyze what factors may affect such knowledge, attitudes and practices.
Methods:
Quantitative cross-sectional study design was used. Through convenience sampling, 176 men and 235 women representing a total of 176 couples participated. A structured questionnaire was used for data collection.
Results:
The mean scores of the married couples family planning knowledge, attitudes, and practices were 19.00 ± 6.11(ranging from 0 to 64), 6.90 ± 3.08 (0 to 14) and 4.69 ± 3.3 (0 to 19) respectively. Urban residents had higher scores on family planning practice than rural residents (p<.05). Attitude is the strongest predictor of practice (accounted for 34.6% of variance).
Conclusions:
These findings offer a descriptive answer to "what are married couples' family planning knowledge, attitude and practice in Gambia", as well as suggesting broader health intervention programs in health education and promotion.
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