الفهرس 
INTRODUCTIONOnly 14 pages are availabe for public view
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Abstract
While the majority of women everywhere want to have children, most also want to control the number of children they have and the timing of pregnancies to meet their own needs and goals. However, there is a substantial proportion of women who are fecund, sexually active and not using any method of contraception meanwhile they report that they don’t want to get pregnant for at least two years. This category of women are referred to as ”women with unmet need for family planning”.
Unmet need for family planning was reported to be responsible for more than 80% of unintended pregnancies which usually end in abortion, miscarriage or unwanted children. These in turn leads to a wide range of adverse consequences on both maternal and child health. Globally, about 12% of married or in-union -women were estimated to have had an unmet need for family planning in 2015. According to Egypt Demographic and Health Survey (EDHS) 2014,12.6% of married women in Egypt were found to have unmet need for family planning.
As having updated estimates of the unmet need for family planning is vital for monitoring success in family planning programs and showing the need for corrective actions that could accelerate the Egyptian achievement of sustainable developmental goals and reduction of maternal mortality. Thus this study was conducted to investigate the problem of unmet need for family planning among married women in the reproductive age in El-Amryea district. This district has similar characteristics of Bedouin population which is infrequently touched.
The present study aimed to determine the extent of “unmet need for family planning” and its determinants among married women in the reproductive age attending Abdel-Kader family health unit in El-Amryea, to identify their socio-demographic characteristics, their fertility pattern and their use of contraceptives and to explore the factors affecting their unmet need of family planning.
To accomplish the objectives, a total number of 200 married women in the reproductive age attending Abdel-Kader family health unit for compulsory vaccination of their children were included.
The level of unmet need among married women in the reproductive age at Abdel-Kader family health unit in El-Amryea was calculated to be 26.5% of the total studied women which is higher than that published in the latest Egypt Demographic and Health Survey (EDHS) 2014. This finding can be indicator of sustained decrease in contraceptive prevalence rate (CPR) in Egypt.
Among women with unmet need for family planning (n= 53), 56.6% of them had unmet need for limiting while 43.4% had unmet need for spacing.
The level of unmet need among studied women was not influenced by socio-cultural values. The reasons for nonuse of contraceptive methods was mainly due to fertility related reasons and method related reasons while small percentages was due to opposition to use and lack of knowledge about family planning methods.
Regarding social status of the enrolled women, more than half of participants (52%) were of low social class, about one third (32%) were in the middle class category and 16% of participants were of very low or very high social class (8% for each). The proportion of unmet need was highest among middle class (49.1%) as compared to other social classes, and the difference was statistically significant, p= 0.030.
The present study revealed that 52% of participants were using contraceptives. Intra-uterine device was the most frequently used method (47%), followed by oral contraceptive pills and injectables (30% and 15% respectively), while only 8% of women used subcutaneous capsules.
Results of the present study showed that 60% of women of very low social class used injectable contraceptives compared to 12.9% and 7.1% of low and middle social classes respectively. However, two thirds of women of high social class, about half of those in low (48.4%) and middle (50%) social classes used intra-uterine devices.
Moreover, 84.5% of enrolled women were previously discontinued contraceptive method. Intrauterine device was the most common discontinued method (43.2%) followed by oral contraceptives (28.4%).
Regarding working status, more than two thirds of enrolled women with met need for FP (67.3%) were housewives compared to 49% of women with unmet need for FP, and this difference was statistically significant (P=0.027).