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Contraceptive histories: a comparative analysis of switching behaviour in five East African countries

Since the inception of family planning programmes in developing countries in the 1960s, crosssectional data show remarkable progress in the adoption of modern methods of contraception. Despite the positive contribution contraception plays in preventing unwanted pregnancies, sexually active women fro...

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Main Author: Kisaakye, Peter
Other Authors: Moultrie, Thomas
Format: Thesis
Language:Eng
Published: Centre for Actuarial Research (CARE) 2019
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access_status_str Open Access
author Kisaakye, Peter
author2 Moultrie, Thomas
author_browse Kisaakye, Peter
Moultrie, Thomas
author_facet Moultrie, Thomas
Kisaakye, Peter
author_sort Kisaakye, Peter
collection Thesis
description Since the inception of family planning programmes in developing countries in the 1960s, crosssectional data show remarkable progress in the adoption of modern methods of contraception. Despite the positive contribution contraception plays in preventing unwanted pregnancies, sexually active women from sub-Saharan Africa continue to grapple with unintended pregnancies, which in some instances, results in unsafe induced abortion, with its attendant risks to maternal health. This thesis uses the most recent (as of January 2017) reproductive calendar data from the Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) programme from five East African countries; Ethiopia (2011), Kenya (2014), Rwanda (2014/15), Tanzania (2015/16), and Uganda (2011), to examine how women use contraception over time. The reproductive calendar data that are collected retrospectively provides a better mechanism to understand the trajectory of how women adopt, and immediately switch, contraception than if current-status data were utilised. Three important findings emerge from the analyses: First, contraceptive use being the most important driver of fertility decline, the slow fertility transition that is evident in the five countries can be largely attributable to limited immediate switching of contraception following discontinuation. Despite this universal observation, the key indicators of immediate switching are largely country-specific, which suggests differences in the way family planning programmes are implemented in these countries. Second, all five countries follow a similar pattern of adopting modern contraception – where the majority of users adopt short-term methods compared to long-acting reversible contraceptives (LARCs). However, the duration of use of short-term methods is observed to be shorter compared to LARCs, implying that LARCs facilitate contraceptive continuation. Last, the analysis of current-status data point to improvements in quality of contraceptive provision, and availability – facilitating increased adoption of modern contraception. However, the results indicate that method information exchange is a key predictor of contraceptive use in all countries, with users of LARCs receiving more information than users of short-term methods. Although family planning programmes have made big strides in recruiting new users, this thesis argues that unintended pregnancy, which often leads to a slow fertility transition, can be prevented once family planning programmes emphasise the benefits of immediately switching, or consistent use of contraception among existing users. Sub-optimal switching of contraception among already existing users is likely to attenuate fertility transition.
format Thesis
id oai:open.uct.ac.za:11427/30384
institution University of Cape Town (South Africa)
language Eng
last_indexed 2026-06-10T12:44:44.887Z
license_str Not specified — see source repository
provenance_str_mv Harvested via OAI-PMH from UCTD — University of Cape Town Open Access Repository
publishDate 2019
publishDateRange 2019
publishDateSort 2019
publisher Centre for Actuarial Research (CARE)
publisherStr Centre for Actuarial Research (CARE)
record_format dspace
source_str UCTD — University of Cape Town Open Access Repository
spelling oai:open.uct.ac.za:11427/30384 Contraceptive histories: a comparative analysis of switching behaviour in five East African countries Kisaakye, Peter Moultrie, Thomas Since the inception of family planning programmes in developing countries in the 1960s, crosssectional data show remarkable progress in the adoption of modern methods of contraception. Despite the positive contribution contraception plays in preventing unwanted pregnancies, sexually active women from sub-Saharan Africa continue to grapple with unintended pregnancies, which in some instances, results in unsafe induced abortion, with its attendant risks to maternal health. This thesis uses the most recent (as of January 2017) reproductive calendar data from the Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) programme from five East African countries; Ethiopia (2011), Kenya (2014), Rwanda (2014/15), Tanzania (2015/16), and Uganda (2011), to examine how women use contraception over time. The reproductive calendar data that are collected retrospectively provides a better mechanism to understand the trajectory of how women adopt, and immediately switch, contraception than if current-status data were utilised. Three important findings emerge from the analyses: First, contraceptive use being the most important driver of fertility decline, the slow fertility transition that is evident in the five countries can be largely attributable to limited immediate switching of contraception following discontinuation. Despite this universal observation, the key indicators of immediate switching are largely country-specific, which suggests differences in the way family planning programmes are implemented in these countries. Second, all five countries follow a similar pattern of adopting modern contraception – where the majority of users adopt short-term methods compared to long-acting reversible contraceptives (LARCs). However, the duration of use of short-term methods is observed to be shorter compared to LARCs, implying that LARCs facilitate contraceptive continuation. Last, the analysis of current-status data point to improvements in quality of contraceptive provision, and availability – facilitating increased adoption of modern contraception. However, the results indicate that method information exchange is a key predictor of contraceptive use in all countries, with users of LARCs receiving more information than users of short-term methods. Although family planning programmes have made big strides in recruiting new users, this thesis argues that unintended pregnancy, which often leads to a slow fertility transition, can be prevented once family planning programmes emphasise the benefits of immediately switching, or consistent use of contraception among existing users. Sub-optimal switching of contraception among already existing users is likely to attenuate fertility transition. 2019-08-01T08:10:29Z 2019-08-01T08:10:29Z 2019 2019-07-31T08:16:11Z Doctoral Thesis Doctoral PhD http://hdl.handle.net/11427/30384 Eng application/pdf Centre for Actuarial Research (CARE) Faculty of Commerce
spellingShingle Kisaakye, Peter
Contraceptive histories: a comparative analysis of switching behaviour in five East African countries
thesis_degree_str Doctoral
title Contraceptive histories: a comparative analysis of switching behaviour in five East African countries
title_full Contraceptive histories: a comparative analysis of switching behaviour in five East African countries
title_fullStr Contraceptive histories: a comparative analysis of switching behaviour in five East African countries
title_full_unstemmed Contraceptive histories: a comparative analysis of switching behaviour in five East African countries
title_short Contraceptive histories: a comparative analysis of switching behaviour in five East African countries
title_sort contraceptive histories a comparative analysis of switching behaviour in five east african countries
url http://hdl.handle.net/11427/30384
work_keys_str_mv AT kisaakyepeter contraceptivehistoriesacomparativeanalysisofswitchingbehaviourinfiveeastafricancountries