Knowledge, attitude and practices of contraception in women of reproductive age

Background: pakistan is the 6th most populous country of the world while contraceptive prevalence rate is only 30%. this study was conducted to investigate the knowledge, attitude and practices of contraception in women of reproductive age.material & methods: this descriptive cross-sectional survey was carried out from january to june 2011, at gynae/obs unit, women & children hospital, kohat. a convenient sample of 900 was selected from reproductive age group (15-49 years), attending the outdoor. data was collected on a questionnaire. likert 3 point and 5 point scale was used about the knowledge and attitude of contraceptive respectively. spss version 16 and statistic 9 were used to analyze the data.results: the mean age of respondents was 30.76±7.641 years. the mean age at marriage was 18.19±2.982 years, literacy rate 37.8%, 95.2% women were house wives and 56.2% respondents had heard of some method. while enquiring their own attitude, 589(65.4%) gave positive response regarding the use of contraceptives and 734(81.6%) declared family planning as prohibited in the religion. use of contraceptive was (30.8%). however, it was more common in grand multipara p<0.0001, >35 years old ladies p<0.0001, working women p<0.01 and those with education up to matric and above p<0.001. husband educationdid not show significant difference on contraceptive use p=0.162. conclusion: frequency of contraceptive use is comparatively low in our set-up despite high level of awareness. desire for larger family, pressure from husband, religious concerns and fear of side effects are the main factors responsible