International Journal of Clinical Science and Medical Research

Background: Unmet need includes a percentage of women who are not currently using any form of family planning methods and want to stop or delay their childbirth. Married women have an unmet need for spacing or limiting birth in developing countries is over 100 million. In Nepal, still, 24% of married women have an unmet need for family planning services. The reason for the gap is little understood at the Lumbini province level and among Terai janajaties of the Bardiya district. Therefore, this study was designed to assess factors associated with the unmet need of family planning and its prevalence among married Tharu women in the Bardiya district of Nepal.

Methods: A community-based cross-sectional study was conducted in Bardiya district among 341 married Tharu women of age group 15-49 years. Out of eight local bodies of Bardiya district; Badhaiyatal rural municipality, Barabardiya municipality, Thakurbaba municipality and Geruwa rural municipality were selected and the household survey was done randomly for data collection. Westoff model was used for estimation of the prevalence of unmet needs for family planning. The relationship between unmet needs and other variables was assessed through bivariate and multivariate analysis using SPSS version 22.

Results: In the study area, the unmet need for family planning was 27%. The Number of living children (AOR=1.966, 95% CI=1.046-3.695), the number of living sons (AOR=2.877, 95% CI=1.114-7.430) wealth quintile (AOR=3.805, 95%CI=1.873-7.703) and spousal communication (=4.287, 95% CI=1.952-9.413) were found significantly associated with unmet need for family planning.

Conclusion: Although the knowledge of FP methods among study participants was excellent (94.7%), more than half of them felt fear of side effects (51.6%). So, to mitigate the fear of family planning’s negative impacts among Tharu women, competent family planning counseling should be provided in an easily understood language, such as Tharu or Nepali.                       

Unmeet Need, Family Planning, Associated Factors, Tharu Women, Bardiya

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