Reproductive health; perceptions, attitudes and practices among young females in Faisalabad district, Pakistan

ABSTRACT

Reproductive health is concerned with the people's ability to have a satisfying and safe sex life ensuring their capability to reproduce with a liberty of making a decision that if, when and how often they have to do so. [1] To examine the females perceptions, attitude and practices about reproductive health services. [2] To determine the level of their empowerment to take decisions and make choices regarding their own reproductive health. [3] To determine the level of the quality, availability and accessibility of reproductive health services and to suggest some measures for policy makers to improve the reproductive health state of young mothers in district Faisalabad. A sample of 600 young married females of age 15-32 years were selected through multistage sampling technique. 2009. Rural and urban area of District Faisalabad. Uni-variate [frequency distribution and percentage] and Bi-variate analysis [Chi square and Gamma Statistics] was carried out. Most [44.0%] of the respondents belonged to age category of 26-30 years; 35.5% were married up to 18 years; 39.3% had passed up to 5 years marriage duration; 71.8% had primary and above level of education. Majority [65.9%] had up to Rs.10,000 per month income, 49.2% possessed 6-10 family members, 73.5% beard at least 2 and above live children, 74.0% perceived family planning good,79.7% had knowledge of FP and 26.0% practiced FPM [Family Planning Method]. The most common FPMs were condom [33.3%] and tubectomy [21.8%] while 41.0% faced side effect because of FPM during their reproductive life. A huge majority [79.8%] of the respondents received ANC, 87.8% made regular visits for medical checkup and 48.8% got ANC from Pvt. Hospital during last pregnancy. Bi-variate analysis showed highly significant relation among age at marriage, awareness level, monthly income, education, number of pregnancies, number of children, number of visits to medical centre, availability of RH services, cultural hindrance and age of respondents vs. their reproductive health. Although most of the females were young and educated mothers with good reproductive health experience and perceived FM good but still lacking in practicing FMPs which indicates that we need to pay more attention towards female empowerment and decision making authority status at domestic level