Knowledge and Factors Associated with Modern Contraceptive Use among Young Women in West African Countries

Obasanjo Afolabi Bolarinwa , University of KwaZulu-Natal

Young women in developing countries are very important in reaping demographic dividend. This is achieved when a country’s birth rates are lowered thus changing the age structure of a country’s population. Knowledge about contraception shows that more than 37% of young women have high knowledge of modern contraception and more than 8% in the five countries were using contraceptive. The gap between the knowledge and use among the young women is somewhat high & there is need to explore further on the factors influencing this gap. The article utilized the most recent Performance Monitoring and Accountability 2020 survey (PMA2020) secondary datasets in the five countries. PMA2020 was a survey carried out yearly in 11 developing countries.The analysis covered only young women aged 15-24 years in the five countries which summed up to 9,323; 1,322 in Burkina Faso, 1,128 in Cote d’ivoire, 1,418 in Ghana, 1,294 in Niger and 4,161 in Nigeria. Univariate, bi-variate and multivariate Analyses were performed using STATA 14 software. Factors associated with young women contraceptive use across the five countries include age, marital status, age at first sex, visited by health worker about family planning, exposure to family planning information on television and knowledge of modern contraceptive. The most statistically significant variables (p<.05) in predicting modern contraceptive use among young women include age at first sex, knowledge of modern contraception and level of education. The study concluded that exposure to family planning is a major factors associated with modern contraceptive use among young women.

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 Presented in Session P1. Poster Session Fertility, Family and the Life Course