Gemeinschaftsmedizin und Gesundheitserziehung

Abstrakt

Demographic, Socio-Economic and Cultural Factors Affecting Knowledge and Use of Contraception Differentials in Malda District, West Bengal

Nazmul Hussain

The demographic profile of India is characterized by one of the high levels of fertility, low ages at marriage and relatively low contraceptive prevalence. The present paper aims at analyzing the level of awareness and adoption of family welfare methods, assessing the source of information and ascertaining the reasons of non-acceptance. Our study was planned to know the contraceptive practices among females in the reproductive age groups in rural area of Malda, West Bengal. The study used data collected from 2587 married women (age 15 to 44) were selected through systematic random sampling techniques. Data were analyzed by simple percentage for easy understanding of the problem. The findings of the study Revealed that the level of knowledge of family planning were high, 98.69 per cent. However, the actual practice of family planning methods was found to be low where only 55.28 per cent were using any family planning method in their life span. The substantial variations in awareness as well as in adoption of contraceptive methods have been observed across the various societies, castes and religious groups in this study. On an average awareness level accounts for 78.18 per cent and adoption rate 68.73 per cent. The concerted effort is needed from Governmental, Non- governmental and Multimedia organizations for enhancing the awareness about the family welfare programme so that it could lead automatic enhancement in adoption rate. The behaviour related to reproduction is determined by cultural and religious values in some communities. No significant association of contraceptive usages was observed with age of marriage and literacy. A statistically significant association of contraceptive usage was seen with number of living children, religion and the age of female.