Assessment of Baseline Level of Knowledge and Attitude of Women towards Symptothermal Method as a Strategy to Ameliorate Unmet Need for Family Planning in Kisumu County, Kenya
Catherine Erosie Igben-Pender, Peter Omemo, Gideon Ng’wena- General Medicine
Background: Unmet need for family planning cuts across various Counties in Kenya. Assessment of knowledge and attitude towards use of family planning method is an important factor contributing to uptake of family planning intervention. This study investigated knowledge and attitude of women towards symptothermal method (STM) as a strategy to ameliorate unmet need for family planning. Methods: This study adopted community based cross-sectional-design. The participants of the study consisted of women-of-reproductive age 15-49. Random sampling-technique was used to select 396 women that participated and responded to structured questionnaires, which was validated, with an overall reliability coefficient of 0.83. Frequency count, percentage scores, multiple response crosstabs and Chi-square analysis at 0.05 level of significance were used to analyze the data. Results: Among participants within the age range of 20-39, 221 (56.0%) were not using any contraceptives, the majority, 115 (52.0%) of the participants preferred natural method but lacked the skills/ knowledge needed to use it, followed by 41 (18.6%) who experienced headache whenever they used hormonal-contraceptives. Most, 194 (87.7%) of the participants had very low level of knowledge of STM which was established at (cal. X2 val. 2.853; p-value, 0.808 @ df, 6) and majority 215 (97.0%) of the participants had very high positive attitude towards STM, established at (cal. X2 val. 43.351; p-value, 0.002 @ df, 6). Conclusion: Findings from this study established that most women lack knowledge of STM but showed positive attitude towards wanting to use it, which further led to an intervention study on Symptothermal method. Key words: Attitude, Knowledge, Symptothermal Method, Unmet Need