Abstract:
Ethiopia has one of the highest Total Fertility Rates of 4.8 While several efforts had been
made to improve FP in the country still FP utilization is very low. Effective FP intervention
is one of the suggested strategies to alleviate the challenge of fast population growth. Despite
efforts made to manage increase on population size in Ethiopia, the effectiveness of the
intervention become minimal in different areas of the country. This study was initiated to
identify socio-cultural factors affecting FP service, status and practice of utilizing FP service
in the study area. A total of 198 respondents were selected using simple random sampling
technique to collect the data. Pre-tested self-administered questionnaire was distributed to
the respondents to collect necessary data for the study, and interview were conducted for the
qualitative data. The socio-demographic result indicated that educational, income status and
practice of FP service positively determined choice of FP options while religion, sex
preference and early marriage was identified to negatively influence the service utilization
among the targeted women. In addition, the finding indicate about (80.5%) of women
reproductive age has awareness about FP but, the practice of FP methods was (41.1%).
IUCD (39%) and Injectables (36%) were the most widely practiced method. (58.9%) Women
not practiced FP methods and religion was taken as one of the major barriers for low
utilization of FP and almost half of women had intention to have more number of children.
The overall prevalence of FP method was low. Increasing education and participation of
women in different economical, societal and local issues were reported to be economic and
social benefits among the household identified to use FP service. Therefore, comprehensive
IEC and efforts by government and non-government organization to work and involve in
favor of bringing positive behavioral change towards FP service utilization are proposed.
