Assessment of the Trends and Factors Associated With Unintended Pregnancy Among Women of Reproductive Age: An Analysis of the Nigerian Demographic Health Survey Between 2008 to 2018

Abstract

Background

Unintended pregnancy is a global public health issue with significant adverse effects which include health and economic consequences. Globally, there were 121 million unintended pregnancies annually between 2015 and 2019 among women of reproductive age between 15 and 49 mainly due to the non-uptake of modern contraceptives, harmful norms, stigma and lack of sexual and reproductive health care and information.

Methods

We extracted information from the Nigeria Demographic Health Survey conducted in 2008, 2013, and 2018 to assess the trends and factors associated with unintended pregnancies among women of reproductive-aged 15–49. The descriptive summaries were presented using percentages and binomial logistic regressions for the inferential analysis. All analyses were computed using Stata 15.0 at a 5% level of significance and accounted for the complex survey nature as well as the population size.

Results

The study included a total of 63,040 women of reproductive age. The prevalence of unintended pregnancy was highest among adolescents aged 15–19 years (15.1%, 95% CI: 13.9–16.5) and decreased with increasing age. The pooled adjusted model revealed that women had 11% lower odds of reporting unintended pregnancies in 2013 compared to 2008. Adolescent girls (aOR 2.48; 95%CI: 2.14–2.89) and young adults (aOR 1.86; 95%CI: 1.69–2.04) have higher odds of reporting unintended pregnancies compared to older women. Also, unmarried women had 9.8 times higher odds of reporting unintended pregnancies compared to ever-married women.

Conclusions

The findings from this study highlight the need for further family planning educational programs and initiatives that support the uptake of effective contraceptive methods to reduce the likelihood of unintended pregnancy and improve women’s sexual and reproductive health while considering regional variations within the country to ensure tailored interventions that address specific needs within each region.

Keywords:

• Mistimed
• unwanted pregnancies
• unintended pregnancies
• women of reproductive age
• Nigeria

Acknowledgement

The authors thank the MEASURE DHS project for their support and for free access to the original data. There was no funding for this study.

Internal review board (IRB) statement

Ethics approval was not required for this study since the data is secondary and is available in the public domain. More details regarding DHS data and ethical standards are available at: http://goo.gl/ny8T6X.

Author contributions

YOK designed the study, performed the analysis, and drafted the first manuscript. BA, EG, KB, AD and JMH, YS critically revised the manuscript for its intellectual content. YOK had final responsibility to submit for publication. All the authors approved the final version of the manuscript for publication.

Conflict of interest

The authors report no conflicts of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of the paper.

Data availability statement

Data for this study were sourced from Demographic and Health surveys (DHS) and available here: http://dhsprogram.com/data/available-datasets.cfm.

Additional information

Funding

The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.