Factors influencing uptake of contraceptive services among undergraduate students aged 18-35 years at Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology, Kenya

Abstract

Contraceptives offer protection against unwanted pregnancy and some sexually transmitted infections including HIV. Interventions to promote contraceptive use are efforts to reduce complications and deaths from unwanted pregnancy and to slow the spread of HIV/AIDS transmission. This study sought to determine the prevalence and factors associated with uptake of contraceptives among undergraduate students at Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology (JKUAT), given that majority of the students fall in 18-35 year’s age bracket. A cross-sectional study design was used which adopted quantitative (through self-administered questionnaires) and qualitative (through KII) approaches. A sample size of 436 was used for the quantitative and 3 staff from the health center for the qualitative data. Quantitative data was entered into STATA v 9.2 (Strata Corp LP, Texas, and USA) and cleaned prior to analysis. Factors associated with contraceptive use were analyzed using both bivariate and multivariate analysis. The data from KII was subjected to a manual thematic content analysis using general purpose software tools using Microsoft Word. The findings of this study revealed that among 436 students, 55% (240) had experienced sexual intercourse. The overall level of contraceptives use was low 34.2% (149).The level of awareness on contraceptives was 96.1%. Contraceptive service provider attitude (P=0.001), affordability/accessibility/safety (P=0.001) and reason for use (P=0.001) were significantly associated with contraceptive uptake. Majority (72%) of students are involved in risky sexual behaviour practices. Condom was the most commonly used contraceptive (54.8%). Majority of students (60%) obtain contraceptives over the counter in pharmacies. It was concluded that the uptake of contraceptive remains relatively low (34%) despite the high level of awareness (96.1%). Contraceptive costs, availability, sources, provider’s attitude and students’ contraceptive attitude and practices play a great role in contraceptive uptake. It was recommended that more enhanced contraceptive information is required aimed at improving the attitude of students and health care providers for the purposes of contraceptive dissemination and use. Strategies to educate the university students on benefits of contraceptive use should be developed by university management and ministry of health to improve acceptability and utilization of the services.