Profile of Family Planning Discontinued Users in Three Secondary Health Facilities of Kaduna Metropolis, Kaduna Nigeria

Audu Alayande; Islamiyat A Nuhu; Oluwatosin Somefun

Volume : VIII, Issue : IV, April - 2019

Profile of Family Planning Discontinued Users in Three Secondary Health Facilities of Kaduna Metropolis, Kaduna Nigeria

Audu Alayande, Islamiyat A Nuhu, Oluwatosin Somefun

Abstract :

Background: Contraceptive discontinuation (CD), is defined as starting contraceptive use and then stopping for any reason while still at risk of an unintended pregnancy. Several reasons adduced for the discontinuation of a method by clients include the need for another child, contraceptive failure, dissatisfaction with the method, and health concerns. An effective client–centered counseling at baseline appointment will reduce discontinuation and enhance switching. Objective: This study aims to analyze the profile of family planning (FP) discontinued users and the prevalence of FP commodity discontinuation among clients in the three high volume secondary health facilities of Kaduna metropolis. It is necessary to tease out this information so that family planning providers will be able to better advice potential users of the advantages and disadvantages of each contraceptive method, thus allowing women to make a more informed decision about the method that best suits their needs. Method: This is a descriptive retrospective desk review of individual FP client records at three General Hospitals in Kaduna metropolis from year 2014–2016. All 9134 FP client cards for the three years were reviewed for evidence of FP switching or discontinuation out of which 809 client cards were found with such evidence. All basic information on the 809 cards were extracted into the data template on SPSS 20. These were analyzed using SPSS20 to generate summary statistics for continuous variables, while frequencies, percentage and proportions were generated for categorical variables. Results: The overall CD prevalence in the three centers over the 3 year–period was 8.9%. More than half of the CD users were between the age range of 25 – 39 years with a mean age of 30±SD years. The majority (80.0%) of the CD users had at least primary school education while between 10 – 39 percent attained tertiary education. Ninety nine percent of CD users had experienced child birth and more than 93 percent had at least one child alive. The commonest contraceptive used before discontinuation were injectables (45.1% and 54.7%) and pills (39.7% and 27.1%) in KGH and YDGH respectively. Presently between 50.0 – 87.5 percent of CD users are using new methods which were commenced within the last six months. Nevertheless, 77–87 percent of the later still expressed a desire for future pregnancy. The commonest reason for CD was health concerns/ side effects (6.4%). About 95 percent of those that exhibit this were educated. Conclusions: CD is commoner among clients older than 20 years and those with a parity of 1 or more. Thus, the responsibility of programmers is to ensure skilled service providers that will address client’s health concern by client centered counseling, providing the required method mix to guarantee free choice and enable women to switch to other methods and fulfill their reproductive rights.