Factors Influencing the Family Planning Practices in Young Married Women (15-24 years) Living in Rural Area of District Etawah Uttar Pradesh: A Cross Sectional Study

Background: Among the young married women in the age group 15-24 years the contraceptive prevalence rate (CPR) is only 27.7% which is quite low than the target CPR of 60%. This study was undertaken to explore the prevalence, factors, causes of non-use of contraceptive among young married women living in rural area of district Etawah.Material and Methods: A cross sectional study was carried out in the rural area of district Etawah in randomly selected three villages. In each selected village, we moved in one direction to identify married women aged 15-24 years. We explained the study and purpose of our visit, and sought willingness of the eligible women to participate in the study. All the households were visited until at least 32 young married women (15-24 years) were interviewed using a pre-tested questionnaire to obtain the desired sample size of 96. The data was analysed using SPSS 24.0.Results: Current use of contraceptives was found to be 33.8 % and almost two-thirds (66.2%) of the participants weren’t using any sort of contraception. The important reasons for non-use of contraception were lack of knowledge/ hesitancy/ shyness/ embarrassment regarding birth control about the contraception or place of availability of services, opposition to contraceptive use by husband, relations and women’s desire to urge pregnant. About one third of the ladies had no perceived need for any contraception.Conclusions: The findings showed that motivation of women to adopt family planning method through counselling along with provision of youth friendly services are needed to be address to achieve improvement in contraceptive use among these young married women living in rural area.