Factors Affecting Contraceptive Use among Reproductive Aged Women: A Case Study in Worawora Township, Ghana

Background: Having more children in the past was a form of assurance to couples on the grounds of having more working hands to help till the land and cultivate crops. However, with the advent of modern farming technologies, pressure on social amenities, scarce resources, high dependency ratio, lack of employable opportunities and high incidence of poverty, a lot of people are trying to limit the number of children they give birth to by averting to the use of contraceptives.

Objective: The aim of this study is to determine factors affecting contraceptive use among reproductive aged women in the Worawora township of the Volta Region of Ghana.

Methods: A cross sectional survey using quantitative method was employed. A total of 390 women were conveniently sampled and questionnaires were administered to obtain the needed data. Bivariate and multivariate logistic regression analyses were deployed to understand the data.

Findings: Majority of the respondents were within the 15-24 age group and also predominantly Christians. The findings identified significant association between the use of contraceptives and age, number of children, number of members per household, occupation, marital status, educational level of partner and having a prior discussing with the sexual partner. Respondents in the age group 35-40 yrs were slightly over four times (OR: 4.33) more likely to use contraceptives compared to the younger aged women, after controlling for other covariates in the predictive model. There was a very progressive likelihood for a woman using contraceptive as the educational level of the partner increase. For instance, women whose partners have attained a tertiary level education were about seven (7) times more likely to use a form of contraceptive compared to those without any formal education. However, the respondent’s marital status and occupation at the time of the study were found to have no statistical significant effect on predicting contraceptive use.

Conclusion: Women in their late thirties and those who indicated discussing the use of contraceptive with their sexual partners have higher tendency of usage. It was noted that partners’ involvement and educational background has high impact on women’s use of contraceptive. Policy decision should be driven to target those outside these age groups and demographic characteristics as measure to encourage usage.