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Community based study on married couples’ family planning knowledge, attitude and practice in rural and urban Gambia


SSS Jammeh
C Liu
S Cheng
J Lee-Hsieh

Abstract

Background: Family planning services have been free of charge and available in all the health facilities in the Gambia since 1975 yet  contraceptive prevalence is only 17.5% and even 6% in some areas. Since the last census in 2003, there existed no available data on married  couples’ contraception status.
Objectives:To explore married couples’ family planning knowledge,  attitudes, and practices in rural and urban Gambia and to analyze what factors may affect such knowledge, attitudes and practices.
Methods: Quantitative cross-sectional study design was used. Through convenience sampling, 176 men and 235 women representing a total of 176 couples participated. A structured questionnaire was used for data collection.
Results: The mean scores of the married couples family planning  knowledge, attitudes, and practices were 19.00±6.11(ranging from 0 to 64), 6.90±3.08 (0 to 14) and 4.69±3.3 (0 to 19) respectively. Urban  residents had higher scores on family planning practice than rural residents (p<.05). Attitude is the strongest predictor of practice (accounted for 34.6% of variance).
Conclusions: These findings offer a descriptive answer to “what are married couples’ family planning knowledge, attitude and practice in Gambia”, as well as suggesting broader health intervention programs in health  education and promotion.

Key Words: Family planning, knowledge, attitude, practice, married couples, The Gambia


Journal Identifiers


eISSN: 1729-0503
print ISSN: 1680-6905