SUMMARY

Family planning is an important preventive measure against maternal and child morbidity and

mortality. It is an essential component of primary health care and reproductive health. There is

relatively high fertility rate in suburban and rural Nigeria despite the efforts of government and

other non-governmental family planning services providers. Even though the fertility rate is high,

acceptance and utilization of modern family planning methods has been low due to various

reasons. The objective of this study aims to determine the factors associated with utilization of

family planning services among women of childbearing age in rural areas of Kano state, Nigeria.

It is a descriptive cross-sectional, conducted among 364 women of childbearing age (15 to 49

years), utilizing the multi-stage sampling technique.139 (37%) of the respondents were within

the age group 15 to 24 years, all respondents were married (100%) and 135 (37%) had more than

5 children. About half of the respondents (48.7%) had no formal education. Few were currently

using a contraceptive method, however, the majority whom were not using any method had main

reasons being lack of appropriate knowledge on family planning, fear of side effects and

availability .The most significant socio-demographic determinants of utilization of family

planning services were religion (p-value 0.01), family setting (p-value <0.001),age (p-value 0.01)

and male involvement (p-value <0.001) . The utilization of family planning services among the

rural women was poor, with religion, fear of side effect and husbands’ disapproval among other

reasons being the main reasons for non use.

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CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1. Background Information

Family planning is one of the most ―health-promoting‖ and cost-effective activities in public

health promotion and has the potential to avert approximately 30% of maternal and 10% of child

deaths.1 Thus, FP contributes to achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) through