Women’s attitudes towards receiving family planning services from community health workers in rural Western Kenya.

Abstract

Background: Kenya ranks among the countries in Africa with high fertility rates. In order to reverse the trends in high fertility rates, there is need to increase uptake of family planning services particularly by use of community health workers (CHWs) in providing these services in rural areas.
Objective: To describe the perceptions of women towards family planning service provision by CHWs in four rural districts of Western Kenya. It is based on baseline survey data from a three-year, rural community-based family planning project funded by The David and Lucile Packard Foundation.
Methods: A cross-sectional baseline survey was conducted in Western Kenya. The data presented is part of a broader the broader survey . A survey questionnaire was administered to 1,997 women (15-49 years) but only 963 cases were valid for our analyses.
Results: The findings revealed that only a third of the respondents exhibited high approval for Family Planning services from CHWs. Only four out of the thirteen variables explored showed significance on attitudes towards family planning services from CHWs. These are age, level of education, knowledge about family planning benefits and districts.
Conclusion: Women’s perception towards family planning services delivered by CHWs in Western region in Kenya is quite low. To improve the demand and supply for family planning services in this region, there is need to invest a substantial amount of effort into sensitization of women on the relevance of CHWs in providing family planning services.

Key words: Community health workers, Women, Family Planning, Attitude