Reproductive and child health: contraceptive knowledge, use and factors affecting contraceptive use among female adolescents (15 – 19 years) in Ghana

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May, 2016
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Abstract
Though contraceptive knowledge has become widespread among female adolescents in Ghana, its use has persistently remained low. This paper assesses the knowledge of contraceptive methods and identifies factors affecting contraceptive use among female adolescents, aged 15 – 19 years in Ghana. Using data from the 2014 Ghana Demographic and Health Survey (GDHS), descriptive, binary logistic regression and multinomial logistic regression models were the principal methods for analysing the data. The findings of the study revealed that the knowledge of modern methods of contraceptives was almost universal with 96.5% of respondents knowing at least a method. Region of residence, together with all its categories, was the only variable that was significantly associated with the current use of contraceptives among female adolescents. It further revealed a significant association between ethnicity and contraceptive use only in respect to female adolescents who were mole-dagbanis. The level of education, religion and wealth had a weakly significant effect on contraceptive use. There was also no significant association between contraceptive use and work status, marital status, health insurance coverage and the type of place of residence. In choosing the type of contraceptive method, all the variables were strongly associated with choosing traditional method of contraceptives over modern methods; with the exception of female adolescents who had basic education and those who were Presbyterians and had no health insurance coverage. Bearing on the fact that contraceptive knowledge has not translated into its use, it is necessary to further promote the use of family planning and to stress the need to educate the adolescent on the benefits of using such measures
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A thesis submitted to The Department of Economics Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, in partial fulfillment of the requirement for the degree of Master of Science,
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