Contraceptive awareness & use among women seeking termination of pregnancy

Objective: to determine the status of contraceptive awareness and its use in women seeking termination of pregnancy.material and methods: this descriptive,questionnaire-based cross-sectional study was carried out in civil hospital,jamrud from march 2013 to april 2014,on 54 women presenting at opd and seeking termination of pregnancy.results: their ages ranged from 15-49 years with mean age of 32 (± 2 years) and the predominant age group was 30-35 years (42%). majority of the respondents were married (96%),did not have any formal education (65%) and were house wives (81%). ninty-four percent were multigravida with mean number of children being 5. majority of the respondents (83%) were aware of contraceptives but only 27% had ever used any method. the most common method used was oral contraceptives. the most common reasons quoted for seeking termination of pregnancy were having too many children (58%) and poverty (52%). husbands’/in-laws’ opposition (22%) and perceiving contraception as against social/religious norms (30%) were the major reasons for not using contraception.conclusion: despite reasonable contraceptive awareness,the actual use is very low among women seeking termination of pregnancy. the socio-cultural and religious myths regarding contraception are the key factors in hampering its uptake and reducing the incidence of induced abortion. © 2014,khyber medical college. all rights reserved.