Abstract

Background: Human fertility is determined by several factors like age at marriage, customs, education, etc. India was the first country in the world to formulate the national family planning program in the year 1952. In spite of all these efforts, the acceptance of contraceptives and fertility pattern varies in the societies even to this day.

Objectives: The objective of this study is to assess the knowledge, attitude, and practice of contraceptives methods among married women in a village near Bengaluru and to determine the factors associated with contraceptive use among the study population.

Materials and Methods: A cross-sectional study was carried out among married women residing in a village of Ramanagara District, Karnataka, India. The study was conducted during January - February 2014. The sample size of 210 was calculated assuming the prevalence of contraceptive use of 59.2% with 95% confidence interval and absolute precision of 7%. Simple random sampling technique was employed.

Results: The mean age of the respondents was 35.59 years. The use of contraceptives was significantly higher among women aged between 30 and 40 years, those belonging to nuclear family, educated up to high school, and having 2 or more children. Most common source of knowledge for the women on contraception was through health personnel (80%). Majority of women (72.8%) were currently practising contraceptive methods. Completed family was the most common reason for using contraception (75.1%). Most of the women availed the contraception services through government hospitals (95.4%). The common reasons for not practising contraception were a desire to conceive (42.1%). Positive attitude toward contraceptive was seen in 84.9% of users.

Conclusion: The study reveals good knowledge and favorable attitude of rural women toward contraception. Increase in awareness regarding spacing methods will improve the prevalence of practising contraception as a spacing method too, not just a terminal method.

Key words: Contraception; Married Women; Rural India; Knowledge; Practice