Factors Predicting Contraceptive Use among Women Seeking Induced Abortion in Dhaka, Bangladesh

Abstract

Objective: To examine the association between contraceptive usebehaviors and its predicting factors including attitudes toward contraceptiveuse, subjective norms toward contraceptive use, perceived behavioralcontrol over contraceptive use, contraceptive knowledge, and perceivedbarriers to contraceptive use, among women seeking induced abortion inDhaka Medical College Hospital, Dhaka, Bangladesh. Method: A sample of150 unwanted pregnant women seeking induced abortion from DMCH inMarch, 2014 was recruited by a simple random sampling. A set ofstructured questionnaires was used for data collection. The questionnairewas primarily developed in English. They were validated by five expertsand had high item-level content validity indices ranging from 0.80 to 1.00.After back-translated to Bengali language by the researcher and threebilinguals, the Bengali version was tested for its reliability in 30 womencomparable to intended participants. All five questionnaires had acceptablereliability. Specifically, knowledge had a Kuder-Richardson 20 coefficient of0.78, while the other 4 Likert-type questionnaires had Cronbach’s alphacoefficients between 0.72 and 0.90. Data were analyzed by standardmultiple regression. Results: Of five independent variables, attitudestoward contraceptive use, perceived behavioral control over contraceptiveuse, and perceived barriers to contraceptive use accounted for 18.2% ofvariance in contraceptive use (F3,146 = 10.82, P < 0.01). Conclusion:Bangladeshi health care providers working with women seeking inducedabortion should focus on encouraging women’s attitudes towardscontraceptive use, and decreasing women’s perceived barriers tocontraceptive use.Keywords: contraceptive use, induced abortion, theory of plannedbehavior, Bangladesh