Abstract

Background: Nowadays, even though increased facilities are being provided for family planning program in all the sections of the society, the factors such as age at marriage, education, economic status, religion, and number of living children prevail, which play an important role in adopting it.

Objective: To understand the various factors affecting family planning practices among eligible couples in urban slums—an underprivileged indigenous community in Jamnagar, Gujarat.

Materials and Methods: In this study, 450 women of reproductive age (15–49 years) residing in urban slum areas were interviewed, and slum areas of the city were selected by using the 30 cluster sampling technique. The association between the variables was assessed by using X2-test, and analysis was done by the use of SPSS software, version 17, and Microsoft Excel, 2013.

Result: Majority of the women (95.11%) were aware about contraceptive methods. Effective couple protection rate in this study was found to be 66.44%, which is higher than the Gujarat state figure [i.e., 56.5% (NFHS-III)]. Among both modern and traditional methods, female sterilization ranked first. Of the total subjects, 35.79% of women had preferred this method—almost similar to the Gujarat state figure. On the other hand, the prevalence of male sterilization methods was comparatively higher than that of the state level. The acceptance rate of contraceptives was higher among women aged ≥30 years and high literacy status of women, while nonacceptance rate of contraceptives was found much higher among women who had a low socioeconomic status and more number of children. Major sources of information about family planning were health worker (68.88%), husband (68.46%), television (42.06%), and doctor/health worker (35.75%). The leading motivators for family planning in women were health professionals in 66.89% women.

Conclusion: This study highlights the need for a constant interaction of health functionaries with the eligible couple for boosting family planning program. All the efforts to strengthen and raise the female literacy should be done such as strengthening behavior change communication (BCC) activities within health department and nonhealth department; improving knowledge, attitude, and practice in the community toward family planning practices.

Key words: Eligible couple, family planning, urban slum