ISSN 2360-7963
Abstract
Accepted 15th December, 2014
Induced Abortion which constitutes 10% of maternal mortality in Ghana presents a serious health problem particularly among women presenting at KATH. To accelerate progress towards achieving MDG 5 there must be substantial reduction in induced abortion alongside an increased contraceptive uptake, PAC. Cross-sectional study design was used to assess factors influencing contraceptive uptake among women within the age range of 15-49 years presenting with abortion in KATH from June to August. Systematic sampling technique was used to select 420 samples for the study ensuring that attributes being studied were randomly distributed. The data gathered through telephone conversation (follow-up interview) for almost 3 months were analysed using SPSS version 16. Majority, 252 (60%) of women who had induced abortion were younger than 30, single, unemployed with low education and socio-economic status. Out of this 60%, only 21.4% used contraceptive after the induced abortion, only 10.3% were married in addition to 35.3% cohabiting with their partners depicting high unmet FP needs among respondents since a large number of women wished to postpone or desired to delay childbearing for economic reasons. Thus, majority, 339 (80.7%) of the respondents had the desire to use contraceptives. Barriers to contraceptive use were a result of gender inequality, economical factors, social prescripts and poor service delivery. The output, unintended pregnancies ended in induced abortions. Contraception is an essential element of PAC. The desire to delay, space and end childbirth are reasons giving for having an induced abortion suggesting unmet need for FP. There is the need to match findings from contraceptive and induced abortion studies to develop strategies to address both.
Keywords: Contraception, Induced abortion, pregnancy, maternal mortality in Ghana