REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH

PERCEPTIONS, ATTITUDES AND PRACTICES AMONG YOUNG FEMALES IN FAISALABAD DISTRICT, PAKISTAN

Abstract

Reproductive health is concerned with the people’s ability to have a satisfying
and safe sex life ensuring their capability to reproduce with a liberty of making a decision that
if, when and how often they have to do so. Objective: (1) To examine the females perceptions,
attitude and practices about reproductive health services. (2) To determine the level of their
empowerment to take decisions and make choices regarding their own reproductive health. (3)
To determine the level of the quality, availability and accessibility of reproductive health services
and to suggest some measures for policy makers to improve the reproductive health state of
young mothers in district Faisalabad. Study Design: A sample of 600 young married females of
age 15-32 years were selected through multistage sampling technique. Period: 2009. Setting
Area: Rural and urban area of District Faisalabad. Material and Method: Uni-variate (frequency
distribution and percentage) and Bi-variate analysis (Chi square and Gamma Statistics) was
carried out. Results: Most (44.0%) of the respondents belonged to age category of 26-30
years; 35.5% were married up to 18 years; 39.3% had passed up to 5 years marriage duration;
71.8% had primary and above level of education. Majority (65.9%) had up to Rs.10,000 per
month income, 49.2% possessed 6-10 family members, 73.5% beard at least 2 and above
live children, 74.0 % perceived family planning good,79.7% had knowledge of FP and 26.0%
practiced FPM (Family Planning Method). The most common FPMs were condom (33.3%) and
tubectomy (21.8%) while 41.0% faced side effect because of FPM during their reproductive life.
A huge majority (79.8%) of the respondents received ANC, 87.8% made regular visits for medical
checkup and 48.8% got ANC from Pvt. Hospital during last pregnancy. Bi-variate analysis
showed highly significant relation among age at marriage, awareness level, monthly income,
education, number of pregnancies, number of children, number of visits to medical centre,
availability of RH services, cultural hindrance and age of respondents vs. their reproductive
health. Conclusions: Although most of the females were young & educated mothers with good
reproductive health experience and perceived FM good but still lacking in practicing FMPs
which indicates that we need to pay more attention towards female empowerment and decision
making authority status at domestic level.