Assessing breast cancer awareness on reproductive age women in West Badewacho Woreda, Hadiyya Zone, South Ethiopia; Community based cross- sectional study.

INTRODUCTION: Breast cancer is the most commonly diagnosed cancer in women worldwide, in both high- and low-income countries. Individual and community awareness of breast cancer can be extremely beneficial. However, breast cancer awareness is extremely low among Ethiopian women, particularly in rural areas. Thus, the aim of this study was assessing awareness of breast cancer on reproductive-aged women in West Badewacho Woreda, Hadiya Zone, South Ethiopia, 2020. METHOD: A community-based-cross sectional study was employed from April 18 to May 16, 2020. To obtain data, a pre-tested structured interviewer-administered questionnaire was employed. A multistage random sampling technique was employed to select reproductive-aged women from Woreda. Data was entered into a computer using Epi data version 3.1, and edited, cleaned and analyzed using SPSS windows version 20. Bivariable and multivariable analyses were used to identify determinants related to awareness of breast cancer. RESULT: A total of 578 reproductive-age women participated in this study. Only 364 women of reproductive-age (63%) had heard about breast cancer. 234 (64.3%) of the respondents were aware of breast cancer. After adjusting for other variables, husbands' educational status [AOR = 0.262; 95% CI (0.076, 0.900)], family history of breast cancer [AOR = 0.281; 95% CI (0.132, 0.594)] and having TV/Radio [AOR = 0.489; 95% CI (0.246, 0.972)] were significant predictors for awareness of breast cancer. CONCLUSION: This study emphasized the importance of raising breast cancer awareness among women in the study area.

Magnitude and factors for method discontinuation and switching among long acting reversible contraceptive users in health facilities of Southern Ethiopia.

BACKGROUND: Long Acting Reversible Contraceptives (LARCs) are contraceptives that prevent unplanned pregnancy in a more safer and effective way than other modern short acting methods. However, method discontinuation and switching are still challenges for utilization of LARCs in resource limited countries for several reasons. Thus, the aim of this study was to determine magnitude and factors for method discontinuation and switching among LARCs users in health facilities of Southern Ethiopia. METHODS: A Facility based record review was used to collect data from May to June 2019. Three hospitals were randomly selected from five hospitals found in southern Ethiopia. A total of 1050 records were included in the study from long acting family planning registers between 2018 and 2019. Data were entered to Epi-info 3.5.4 and exported to SPSS for windows version 20 for analysis. A descriptive statistics was performed to describe factors and reasons for LARCs discontinuation and switching off. Logistic regression technique with a 95% confidence level was used to determine the association between factors and magnitude of method discontinuation and switching. RESULTS: Of the 1050, 69.8% of women discontinued long acting reversible family planning method before the recommended duration of use and 30.2% of them switched from long acting family planning methods to any other modern contraceptive methods. Women who shifted from any LARCs to short-acting family planning methods accounted for 38.8% of those who shifted to any other modern methods. Desire to get pregnant and method specific side effect were most common reasons for both method discontinuation and switching. Women with only one child were 1.61 times more likely to discontinue than women who had greater than five number of children. CONCLUSION: Discontinuation and switching of long acting reversible family planning method was high. Primiparous women were more likely to discontinue use of long acting reversible family planning methods. Re-evaluating family planning services focusing on effective counseling about side effects of LARCs methods is required. Training should also be given for family planning providers including community healthcare workers.

Ethiopia has a substantially greater percentage of unintended pregnancy than other developing and developed countries. Long-acting reversible contraception (LARC) has a potential to address a huge and growing unmet need in resource limited countries like Ethiopia, such as reducing unwanted births and abortion rates.As part of this global approach to fertility management, Ethiopia has been implementing various strategies like an on-going task shifting and task sharing with the implanon scale up program, and IUD revitalization program starting from the community health services to higher level healthcare systems to increase access and utilization of long acting reversible family planning methods. However, discontinuing LARCs before the recommended duration use and switching to short-acting contraceptives have proven difficulty in Ethiopia. This may have led to low utilization rate of LARCs in Ethiopian contexts including the study area, when compared to the national target. Very low coverage of use of LARC among unmet need has shown by many studies in various corners of the country. Thus, determining the magnitude and factors of LARC discontinuing and switching is still a pressing need to establish additional strategies used to improve consistent use of LARC for the recommended duration and expand access to LARC for better planning of births.In this study we assessed magnitude and factors of LARC discontinuation and switching from a relatively huge number of records extracted from systematically selected health facilities in Southern Ethiopia. Extracted data from registers of long acting reversible family planning methods were analysed using descriptive statistics and logistic regression. Accordingly, we found significant proportion women discontinued long acting reversible family planning methods before the recommended duration of use as well as switched from long acting reversible family planning methods to other modern short-acting methods due to various reasons. Only a number of children women had is associated with discontinuation and no single factor was associated with method switching in Southern Ethiopia. Family planning services should be re-evaluated with a focus on effective counseling on the side effects of LARCs approaches, and training for family planning providers, particularly community healthcare workers, should be provided.