Barriers to uptake of Family Planning Services among Married Women of Reproductive Age in Kenya

Unintended pregnancy has adverse social and maternal costs with a worldwide count of 85 million cases in 2012 and Kenya reporting 40% in 2014. Sustainable development goals targets to achieve universal reproductive healthcare services inclusive of family planning by 2030 where in this premise FP2020’s set an overarching goal to achieve 120 million new contraceptive users by 2020. Kenya aimed to increase modern contraceptive prevalence rate by 10% from 46% in 2014. PMA2020 surveys conducted between 2014 and 2020 in Kenya, showed improved contraceptive use from 45% to 58%. Despite this improvement, the supply does not fulfil demand leading to unmet needs for family planning. This study aimed at investigating social demographics, trends, differentials and associated factors affecting unmet need for family planning among married women using PMA2020 surveys. The survey used cross-sectional design with multi-stage sampling to document responses to family planning indicators from eligible women of reproductive age. Samples were drawn from nine randomly selected Counties using probability proportional to size based on households, 120 enumeration areas stratified by urban/rural and randomly selected 42 households. Unmet need for family planning was higher among younger women, in rural setting, low education level and with more children. Additionally, unmet need declined from 2014 to 2016, and decreased with increase in age, discussion about side-effects and age at first contraceptive use. Therefore, family planning programs should be accessible to all women, increase discussion of side-effects related to family planning methods and decrease the age at which women first use contraceptive. Key words: Family planning; Unmet need; PMA2020 and, FP2020