A COMMUNITY BASED CROSS-SECTIONAL STUDY TO ASSESS THE UNMET NEED OF FAMILY PLANNING IN URBAN SLUMS AND IT’S DETERMINANTS IN WESTERN PART OF INDIA

Context: Unmet need is a valuable indicator of National Family Planning Programme. It shows how well the programme achieves the key mission of meeting the population’s felt need of family planning. It is added to the 5th MDG as an indicator concerned with maternal health. Aims: To find out 1.) Unmet need of family planning and 2.) Its determinants. Settings and Design: A community based cross sectional study was done among married women of age 15-45 years of urban slums in Jamnagar city. Methods and Material: total 200 study participants were selected by systemic random sampling and interviewed by using pretested semi-structured Performa. Statistical analysis used: Microsoft excel was used for data entry and analysis done by software Epi-info. Results: overall level of unmet need was 20.50%. It was found to be influenced by various socio-demographic factors (age of women, gender of last child and accessibility to the service providers) and these associations were found statistically significant. Number of living children, occupation, and period of active married life, religion and collective decision had no any effect on unmet need. (No statistically significant associations). Major reasons for not using any methods were inconvenience (51.22%), refusal by spouse/family members (21.95%) and lack of knowledge (19.51%) Conclusions: unmet need was higher in more fertile age-group therefore program should focus more on this agegroup. Female education contributes significantly in reduction of unmet need. By encouraging inter-spousal communication and male participation for family planning decision-making is important in bridging the gap between met and unmet need.