CONTRACEPTIVE NON-USE AMONG YOUNG MARRIED WOMEN (15-24 YEARS) LIVING IN URBAN SLUMS OF LUCKNOW

Introduction: Though the Age Specific Marital Fertility Rate (ASMFR) in Uttar Pradesh is highest in the age group of 20-24 years (383.9)  followed by 15-19 years (271.0) but the current use of contraceptives among Young married women in the age group of 15-24 years is only 27.75% which is quite low. Objectives: i) To assess the prevalence of non-use of contraceptive among young married women living in urban slums of Lucknow. ii) To understand the reasons for non-use of contraceptives among young married women. iii) To study the factors influencing non-use of contraceptive among young married women. Materials and Methods : A cross sectional study was carried out in the urban slums of Lucknow. Out of the eight Nagar-Nigam zones in Lucknow, one Urban Primary Health Centre was selected randomly from each zone. From each Urban Primary Health Centre, 2 slums were selected randomly. In selected slum, all the households were visited until at least 33 young married women (15-24 years) were interviewed using a pre tested questionnaire to obtain the desired sample size of 535. The data was analyzed using SPSS 16.0. Results: Current use of Contraceptives was found to be 33.8 % and almost two-thirds (66.2%) of the participants were not using any form of contraceptive method. The important reasons for non-use of contraception were embarrassment / hesitancy / shyness regarding family planning, lack of knowledge, opposition to contraceptive use and desire to get pregnant. Among the variables, Educational attainment of the women, Employment Status, Parity, Autonomy of the women, Attitude of the husband towards Family Planning, Motivation to use contraceptive, Motivation by a health care provider and Home visit by ANM showed independently significant association with non-use of contraceptives. Conclusion: The study found contraceptive use to be very low among the Young Married Women of urban slums with embarrassment / hesitancy / shyness regarding family planning being the most common reason for this non-use. This along with other focus areas needs to be addressed to achieve improvement in the contraceptive use and thereby in maternal and child health. Keywords: Non-use, Young married women, Urban slums