Knowledge, Attitude and Practices towards contraceptive Use among Unmarried Females Students at Mount Kenya University Rwanda

Abstract

Bertin Sitini, Rosemary Okova, Fidele Nizeyimana and Erigene Rutayisire

Background: Contraceptive use is one of the effective means for preventing unintended pregnancies and is highly affected by cultural and social demographic background especially in premarital or unmarried females. Rwanda has made great effort to promote women’s health and to decrease the maternal mortality and morbidity, but there is still a long journey to prevent post abortion morbidity and mortality. This study aimed to assess knowledge, attitude and practices towards contraceptive use among female students.

Methods: This is a quantitative cross sectional study conducted among 313 female students recruited using a stratified sampling method combined with a simple random sampling. Online questionnaire was used to collect data from study participants. Obtained data was processed and analyzed using SPSS version 25. Descriptive statistics was used to get background information of the study population, and multivariate analysis was used to evaluate factors influencing contraceptive use.

Results: The mean age of participants was 25.6±3.3SD, Undergraduates respondents represented 92.7% , 7.3% of respondents were in postgraduates. The results showed that the knowledge of unmarried female students is generally good and their attitudes towards contraceptives are positive. Among 313 participants, 65.8% reported to be sexually active, 76.7% had used any modern contraceptive and 76.2% had practiced unprotected sexual intercourse at least once. A total of 11.5% have had unintended pregnancies at least once. The most commonly known and used methods were condoms and pills. Fear of side effects (55.6%) and lack of information about contraceptives (18.5%) have been reported as factors influencing the non-use of contraceptives.

Conclusion: This study concluded that there is still a gap in contraceptive use among sexually active unmarried female students, and recommended the university needs to increase awareness of university students towards contraceptive use.

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