Uptake of family planning by public health workers in Kumasi Metropolis-Ghana

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Date
June 2016
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Abstract
Introduction: Family planning is essential to reducing the total fertility rate and ultimately maternal morbidity and mortality as well as contributing positively in infant wellbeing. It is speculated that even the highly knowledgeable Ghanaian in the area of family planning still has low level of family planning patronage. Public health workers are the first link of a chain, the most peripheral element of the health system and it is through them that family planning services are expected to get to the people of Ghana. Research information on the uptake of family planning among the health workers in the Kumasi Metropolis will help provide specific questions and answers relating to the usage, the impact on health care delivery and invariably the way forward. It was upon these grounds therefore that the current study seeks to investigate the socio economic and demographic factors influencing public health workers adoption of family planning methods. Methods: A cross sectional design was used for the study. The study adopted descriptive and explanatory methods in the analysis of the study. The sample size for the study was 331 health workers from all the five public hospitals in Kumasi Metropolis. The respondents of the study were selected using a multistage sampling technique. This study adopted the binary probit regression to assess the socio-economic and socio-demographic factors influencing public health workers adoption of family planning methods. Results: The study found a significant association between the usage of FP and the age, marital status, and parity of public health workers in Kumasi Metropolis. About 41.1% and 13.1% of the health workers were currently using the condoms and withdrawal respectively as their main family planning methods. The majority (63.8%) was not satisfied with the family methods. Currently 72% of the public health workers in the Kumasi metropolis are using various methods of family planning. Some of the public health workers who failed to adopt the family planning methods were as a result of the absence of their preferred method. Conclusion: The majority of the non-adopters of the family planning methods were dissatisfied with the methods for a number of reasons including fear of side effects, discomfort of the methods and fear of sterility; they need more education and the introduction of alternative family planning methods with minimal side effects and discomfort. The study therefore proposes that the public health units should make available all the types of family planning methods with minimal side effects in order to attract more patronage, and public education of the male on the need for FP methods.
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A thesis submitted to the Department of Population and reproductive health, college of health sciences, school of public health, in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of public health in Population and reproductive health
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