Addressing unmet need: potential for increasing contraceptive prevalence in the Philippines.

Abstract

Lack of knowledge and cultural or personal objections prevent women from using contraceptives even if they want to space or limit their pregnancies thus leading to an unmet need for contraception. Utilizing secondary data from 4129 ever-married women included in the 2000 Reproductive Health (RH) Baseline Surveys this article examines the relationship between selected psychosocial factors and unmet need. After controlling for the effects of attitude a low level of knowledge was significantly associated with either unmet need for spacing (p<0.001) or limiting (p<0.001). By contrast after controlling for the effects of age the number of living children knowledge and access to family planning services the association of negative attitude with unmet need was modified by educational level. In comparing women with a negative attitude to those with a positive one the adjusted odds ratio of having unmet need for spacing (OR=3.8 90 per cent CI=2.0-7.3) and unmet need for limiting (OR=2.2 90 per cent CI=1.2-4.0) was found to be highest among those with low levels education. Meanwhile no association existed between attitude and unmet need among women with tertiary education. These findings can be used to help family planning programme managers design and implement an effective unmet need strategy in the Philippines that targets subgroups of women with the highest priority. Accordingly strategies should increase knowledge about modern contraceptives and facilitate attitudinal change towards family planning particularly among women who do not attain a higher education.