Contraceptive Preferences of Women Attending a Tertiary Care Hospital

Introduction: In developing countries like India a large proportion of young women have unintended pregnancies and their unmet need for contraception is very high. The NFHS survey for unmet need was 13% for India. Such unplanned pregnancies are generally associated with an increased risk of unsafe abortions which significantly adds to maternal morbidity and mortality. To prevent such unplanned pregnancies and the associated adverse outcomes the use of contraception should be promoted and encouraged. In the built up towards the national population policy which came into force finally in 2000, the family planning program was implemented in 1952 to reduce the rapidly increasing population growth. This family planning program focused on a number of modern approaches but later shifted towards male sterilization. However post 1970's till mid 1990's the family planning programs were mainly women centric.

Materials and Methods: This Descriptive study was conducted in the family welfare and planning centre of LallaDed hospital, Government medical college Srinagar over a period of 19 months (April 2018-October 2019). 20,880 women in the age group of 18-40 years were interviewed after excluding the cases of infertility, those who had undergone sterilization, undergone hysterectomy and those with premature menopause.

Results: Out of 20,880 patients attending the family planning clinic 26.8% used Condoms, 19.3% used Depot Medroxyprogesterone Acetate (DMPA), 15.65% opted for strerilisation, 14.6% used combined oral contraceptives (COC), 14.41% did not use any contraception, 8.65% used Intrauterine device, and 3.86% used Centchroman.

Conclusion: Barrier methods of contraception are very well accepted in our socio demographic setup mainly because of their easy usage, availability, affordability and an additional benefit of protection against Sexually Transmitted Infections. Further it does not have an impact on future fertility of women making it a favourable choice of contraception.