Assessment of Unmet Needs of Family Planning and Reasons for Non-Use of Contraceptive Methods among Women in Reproductive Age in Rural Community

Background: Unmet need for family planning (FP), which refers to the condition in which there is the desire to avoid or post-pone child bearing, without the use of any means of contraception, has been a core concept in the field of international population for more than three decades. The concept of unmet need points to the gap between these women’s reproductive intentions and contraceptive behaviour. The sum of the unmet need for limiting and the unmet need for spacing is the unmet need for family planning. NFHS III showed that there is 22% of overall unmet need of family planning. The reasons are multiple to not to use the contraceptive methods. These reasons need to be attended. Materials and methods:The cross-sectional study conducted amongst 378 women in reproductive age group in rural health training centre of tertiary care hospital with the study tool of semi-structured questionnaire. Women in reproductive age group from 35 villages of primary health centres were participated in the study. Results:The result showed that 42% women are having unmet need for family planning with higher (63%) unmet need for limiting method than spacing method (37%) and the most preferred method for future use was female sterilization(63%) followed by OC pills(23%). The most common reason among non-users was fear of side effects (34%) of use of contraceptive methods. Conclusion: Study concludes that there is an unmet need of family planning higher for limiting than spacing methods amongst the rural women.