Contraceptive use and its determinants amongst armed forces personnel

Nearly 1.5 billion adolescent girls are entering into child bearing age groups without effective knowledge regarding family planning practices which are essential to maintain their reproductive health. Timely and effective knowledge regarding family planning norms and practices among the young women during their initial married days are vital. Therefore the study was carried out with the aim to find out the factors associated with use of contraceptive among Armed Forces Personnel.

A cross sectional survey was carried out among Armed Forces personnel living in a Military station with pre-validated and pre-tested questionnaire. Data was collected from 221 eligible couples. Univariate and logistic regression were done to find out the variables determining family planning.

Out of 221 couples, 65.2% (144) of couples were practicing some or the other methods of family planning while 34.8% (77) didn't practice any methods. Age, age at marriage, sex of first child, type of family, empowerment and parity of women were significantly associated with contraceptive acceptance in univariate model. However in logistic regression analysis age at marriage, empowerment and parity were significant predictors of family planning. Major reason for not adopting any contraception was want of another child (20, 26%), girl child (18, 23%), male child (18, 23%) and worry about side effects (11, 14.3%).

The study highlights the gap in preferences and practices of contraceptive and emphasized the need to highlight safety of contraceptive during Information, Education and Communication (IEC) campaign.