Publications

Family planning, a pillar of safe motherhood is known for its benefits including limitingunwanted pregnancies and reducing infant and maternal mortality and morbidity. Thisresearch aimed to explore factors which influence the utilization of FP among women ofreproductive age (15-49) attending Fort Portal regional referral hospital in Fort portal city. Across-sectional descriptive study design was used and a total of 292 randomly selectedwomen of reproductive age (15-49) at Fort Portal Regional Referral Hospital were enrolledinto the study. Data on the current use of family planning and related factors was collectedusing a researcher-administered questionnaire, checked for completeness and analyzedusing the statistical package for social sciences (SPSS) software version 25. Factorsinfluencing family planning utilization were determined using logistic regression analysisand Qui square test while statistical significance was determined at p-value≤0.05 and 95%confidence interval. The prevalence of contraceptive utilization was 29.79%.Our resultsindicated that age, marital status, parity, number of living children, age of the youngest child,time to have the next child, mode of delivery, partner discussion about family planning andfemale approval of family planning use were important predictors of family planningutilization at bivariate logistic regression analysis while only the age of the youngest childand expected time to have another child significantly influenced family planning utilizationat multivariate regression analysis. Age of the youngest child and the expected time to haveanother child significantly influenced family planning utilization. Family planning utilizationwas low far way below the national family planning strategy target thus more efforts neededto improve family planning utilization among women of reproductive age if the nationalfamily planning target is to be achieved.