Family planning perspectives and practices of married adolescent girls in rural Upper Egypt

Abstract

Objectives

The aims of the study were to explore the contraceptive practices of married adolescent girls in rural Upper Egypt and identify the determinants of their ever use of modern contraception.

Methods

The study was a household survey of 729 married adolescent girls in 23 villages of two governorates in Upper Egypt. Listing and enumeration of all households in the selected villages were performed prior to data collection, to recruit married adolescent girls below 20 years of age. The girls were interviewed using a structured questionnaire.

Results

Only 6% of married adolescent girls were using a modern contraceptive method; 10.6% had ever used a modern contraceptive method, mostly a short-acting method. Considerable proportions of participants believed that using contraception would reduce a woman’s fertility and that women should not delay their first pregnancy (34% and 54.3%, respectively); only 50.2% believed that contraception could be used for birth spacing. Predictors of the ever use of a modern method of contraception among married adolescent girls were: accepting that contraception could be used for birth spacing (B = 1.82, p < .001), older age (B = 0.42, p < .01), better reproductive health knowledge (B = 0.23, p < .05) and sharing in contraceptive decision making (B = 0.55, p < .05).

Conclusion

Married adolescent girls' current use and ever use of modern contraception were very low in rural Upper Egypt. Changing the social norms to create the desire to delay first childbirth, improving adolescent girls' reproductive health knowledge, correcting myths about contraception and building girls' agency to use contraception may increase their contraceptive use.

摘要

目标: 研究旨在探讨上埃及农村地区已婚少女的避孕措施, 并明确她们是否使用现代避孕方法的决定因素。

方法：对上埃及两省23个村庄的729名已婚少女进行家庭调查。在收集数据之前, 对选定村庄的所有家庭进行了列表和计数, 招募20岁以下的已婚少女, 这些女孩接受了结构化问卷调查。

结果：正在采用现代避孕方法的已婚少女仅占6%, 10.6%曾使用现代避孕方法, 主要是短效避孕方法。相当大比例的参与者认为, 使用避孕措施会降低妇女的生育能力（34%）, 妇女不应推迟第一次怀孕（54.3%）；只有50.2%的人认为避孕可用于生育间隔。已婚少女使用现代避孕方法的预测因素是：接受避孕可用于生育间隔（B=1.82, p<0.001）、年龄较大（B=0.42, p<0.01）、生殖健康知识较好（B=0.23, p<0.05）和避孕决策分享（B=0.55, p<0.05）。

结论：上埃及农村已婚少女曾经使用或正在使用现代避孕方法的比例很低。改变社会规范以创造推迟生育的意愿、提高少女的生殖健康知识、纠正有关避孕的神话、建立少女避孕机构, 可以增加她们的避孕率。

Keywords:

• Barriers
• Egypt
• ever use
• family planning
• married adolescent girls

Acknowledgements

We would like to acknowledge the Population Council for supporting the study technically and financially. We acknowledge the role of the health directorates in Assiut and Sohag for their support in facilitating data collection. Thanks are also due to all the community health workers, data collectors and the listing and enumeration team for their extensive efforts.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

The study was funded by the Egypt office of the Population Council.