Influence of women empowerment strategy on use of modern contraceptive among women in Kilolo district, Iringa

Abstract

Tanzania is among of the African countries with high fertility rate and a huge unmet need for family planning. Contraceptive prevalence (% of women ages 15-49) in Tanzania was reported at 38.4% in 2016, Women who are not empowered are likely not to use any modern family planning methods as compared to women who are empowered; women empowerment has been recognized as important to their access to reproductive health services, including contraceptives. To reduce the low uptake of modern contraceptive the Government of Tanzania embarked on USAID Boresha Afya Southern Zone Program in addressing women empowerment to reduce morbidity and mortality by contraceptive use interventions with strategies of asset ownership and family planning knowledge. Broad Objective: To assess the influence of women empowerment strategy on use of modern contraceptive in Kilolo district. Methodology: A cross-sectional descriptive retrospective design in evaluation was carried out among 356 women who had reached the age of 18- 52 years at the time of conducting the research. Quantitative data was collected from the household level through multistage sampling procedure. Descriptive statistics and Logistic regression model were used to associate the dependent and the independent variable. Results: A proportion of women who were using modern contraceptive before intervention were around 55 percent while after the intervention proportion increased to around 95 percent. Findings further revealed that women empowerment was associated positively with the use of modern family planning. In addition age, parity, farming occupation and marital status had positive significant effect on the use of modern contraceptive. Conclusion and Recommendations: Women empowerment strategies have influences the use of modern contraceptive among women in Kilolo district. Therefore, Sexual and reproductive health programmes aiming to increase uptake of modern contraceptives in this population of reproductive age should be empower women so as to promote the use of modern contraceptive.