Family planning and long acting hormonal contraceptive: knowledge, attitude and practice of the patients attending the omdurman maternity hospital, sudan

Background: Family planning is recognized not only as a key intervention for improving the health of women and children, but also as a human right. Long-acting reversible contraception, a method that requires administering less than once per cycle or month, is considered the safest method of long term contraception. The good knowledge, positive attitude and correct practice towards long acting hormonal contraceptive is important determinant in successful outcome. The present study was conducted to determine the knowledge attitude and practice towards family planning and long acting hormonal contraceptive among the participants of Sudan.
Material and Methods: This was a descriptive, cross sectional, hospital based study conducted during the period from March to August 2019. All women who were attending family planning clinic in Omdurman Maternity Hospital and those who attended the family planning clinic and those who attended the clinic for LAHC insertion and removal were the study population. Sample using the software Epi info with 95 % confidence interval. Sample size calculated was 101 cases. The sample was collected by random sampling. A Pretested validated and structured questionnaire was administered to collect the data. The data sheet contained demographic information of the participants, the questionnaires related to knowledge, awareness and attitude towards family planning using the long acting hormonal contraception. The data were entered and analyzed by using SPSS version 21. Descriptive statistics were presented using counts, proportions (%), mean ± standard deviation whenever appropriate. A p-value cut off point of 0.05 at 95% CI was used to determine statistical significance.
Results: A total of 101 women participated in the survey with a response rate of 100%. The vast majority of the participants (80.2%) were working Thirty nine women in this study (38.6%) were married for less than five years but more than one year, 33 women (32.7%) were married between 6 and 10 years. The vast majority of the participants acknowledged that they heard about long acting hormonal contraceptive. The majority of the participants (64.4%) had good knowledge about the LAHC which was significantly more among the participants with age group of 26-35 years (P= 0.043), among the postgraduate participants (P=0.032).and among the participants living in Bahri area ( P=0.045). Almost forty nine percent of the participants (48.5%) had negative attitude towards the family planning and long acting hormonal contraceptive. As age increased the positive attitude towards family plan 8ing and LAHC also increased (P= 0.004). The positive attitude was maximum among the post graduate participants (P=0.023), among the working mother (P=0.032)and those with 1-3 children (.P=0.044). Nearly thirty five percent of the participants were using it regularly. Fear of side effect, willingness to be pregnant and refusal by the husband were the main reason of not using it..
Conclusion: The present study has shown that though majority of participants knew about the long acting hormonal contraceptive but only one third of them were using it regularly. Significant number of the participants had negative attitude towards the use of long acting hormonal contraceptive. Majority of the participants in the present study preferred five and more than five children and birth spacing of 3 years between the 2 children. There is need of comprehensive family planning and LAHC awareness programme to teach the patients about the benefits of LAHC and family planning.