Trend and predictors of change of unmet need for family planning among reproductive age women in Ethiopia, based on Ethiopian demographic and health survey from 2005-2016: Multivariate decomposition analysis

Background: Family planning is a key method for reducing population growth and improving maternal and child health by spacing births and preventing unwanted pregnancies. have an unmet need for family planning is defined as women believed to be sexually involved but are not using some form of contraception, either do not want to have more children (Limiting) or want to delay their next birth for at least two years, (Spacing). Methods: The data for this study arrived from the Ethiopia Demographic Health Surveys in 2005, 2011, and 2016 to investigate trends and Predictors of change of unmet need for family planning among reproductive age women in Ethiopia. A pooled weighted sample of 26,230 (7761 in 2005, 9136 in 2011 and 9,333 in 2016 Ethiopian demographic health surveys) reproductive-age women used for this study. For the overall trend (2005-2016) multivariate decomposition analysis for non-linear response outcome was calibrated to identify the factors contributed to the change of unmet need for family planning. The Logit based multivariate decomposition analysis utilizes the output from the logistic regression model to assign the observed change in in unmet need for family planning over time into two components. Stata version 16.0 was used to analysis the data. Result: among reproductive age women in Ethiopia the magnitude of unmet need for family planning decreased from 39.6% in 2005 to 23.6% in 2016. From the decomposition analysis change of unmet need for family planning was due to change in characteristics and coefficients. About nine in ten changes in unmet need for family planning was attributable to the difference in coefficients. Factors that associated with the change of unmet need for family planning over the last 11 years were educational status, birth order, and desired number of children. Conclusion: Remarkable change in unmet need for FP was observed between the period of 2005 and 2016. Both change in characteristics and coefficient were the contributing to observed change. Majority of the change in unmet need for FP was due to difference in coefficient over the study period. Mainly the change of unmet need for FP was due to change in women having birth order of five and above, having secondary education and women who desired number of children below five.