Background: Worldwide, roughly 358,000 women and 3
million newborn babies die each year because of complications
related to pregnancy and childbirth. Contraceptive use likely
prevents more than 272,000 maternal deaths related to childbirth
each year. In Ethiopia up to 78 percent of unwanted pregnancies
were attributable to contraceptive non-use, incorrect use,
or method failure. Long acting contraceptive methods are
convenient for users, less discontinuation rate and effectively
prevent pregnancy. Despite of its several advantages, long
acting contraceptive methods utilization remains relatively
low worldwide and in Ethiopia. The aim of this study was to
assess the utilization of long acting contraceptive methods and
its associated factors among married reproductive age women
(15-49) in Arba Minch zuria district.
Methods: community based cross sectional study design
was utilized. Simple random sampling technique was used to
select 550 study participants from nine Demographic health
survey research site kebeles from January 1st 2015 until
January 30th 2015. The data was entered in to EPINFO version
3.5.1 and exported to SPSS version 20. Descriptive statistics
was employed to describe each variables and multiple logistic
regression to determine the association between determinant
variables and outcome variable. P value less than 0.05 with 95%
Confidence interval was considered as a significant variable.
Result: a total of 550 mothers were interviewed with
100% response rate. Currently 60(33%) mothers are using
implants and 9(4.9%) intra uterine contraceptive devices.
Highest wealth index (AOR=3.15, 95% CI (1.26, 7.94)), High
level knowledge (AOR=7.59, 95% CI (3.22, 17.87)), positive
attitude (AOR=3.82, 95%CI (1.97, 7.36)), No desire for more
children (AOR=6.44, 95% CI (2.67, 15.51)) and husband
support (AOR=2.54, 95% CI (1.41, 4.57)) showed significant
association with utilization of long acting contraceptive
methods.
Conclusion: Utilization of long acting contraceptive
methods was low as compared to other studies. Having high
level knowledge, positive attitude, No desire for more children
and husband’s support for family planning use showed
significant association with utilization of long acting methods.
The importance of use of these methods over the other has to be
advocated through media to increase awareness and utilization.
A strategy to involve husbands’ in utilization of long acting
contraceptives has to be designed in the health education
program.