Abstract |
This study is the first of a series of community-based surveys that the City of Tshwane Metropolitan Municipality (CTMM) has planned to conduct in the next 15 years to fulfill its provincial mandate (being the provider of primary health care services) in accordance with the Gauteng District Health Services Act (Act No 8 of 2000) 1 . The study determined the prevalence rate of contraceptive use and method choice, and the effects of the availability of reproductive health services on contraceptive use and method choice in the CTMM in 2004. The study used a descriptive cross-sectional population-based study design and a sample of 3, 547 women of childbearing age (15-49 years) using a multi-stage cluster sampling with probability proportional to size to determine these effects. A modified 1998 SADHS questionnaire helped to collect information on selected individuals, programmes and district explanatory variables from women living in the four health sub-districts and data were used in three B (4 variables), C (six variables) and D (eight variables) unconditional binary logistic regression models and a multinomial logistic model to estimate their effects (odds ratios and pvalue at 5% level) on contraceptive use and method choice. The selection of these variables is based on the conceptual framework that recognizes that contraceptive use or method choice is the consequence of service utilization, which, in turn, is influenced by individual, service/programme and community factors 2,3 . The availability of reproductive health services was measured by the presence or absence of the supply source of contraceptive methods in a district. After controlling for the effects of individual (social and demographic) variables, none of the programmatic variables was independently associated with contraceptive use. By contrast, district/place of residence predictor was associated with reduced odds of contraceptive use and with reduced odds of condom, injection and IUD’s choice against pill in all the models and districts, respectively. In terms of the source of first information on contraceptive methods and the differences between IUD and injection, the study shows that nurses (odds ratio, 1.80, p<0.05) are more likely than mothers to be the providers of information on IUD while physicians (odds ratio, 0.65, p<0.05) are shown to be less likely than mothers to be the providers of information on injection as opposed to the pill. The private sector ( odds ratio, 2.12, p<0.01) is shown to be more likely than the public sector to be the supply source of IUD methods rather than the pill, and also more likely (odds ratio, 1.97, p<0.01) than the public sector to be the supply source of IUD instead of injection. Private pharmacies (odds ratio, 2.25, p<0.05) are more likely than the public sector to supply condoms rather than the pill. The presence or absence of reproductive health services in a district was significantly associated with reduced odds of both contraceptive use and choice of condom, injection and IUD methods against pill. This may be attributable to women’s willingness to travel outside their place of residence to get their preferred method. Thus availability of reproductive health services in the district seems not to have an important effect on use and choice of modern contraception in the City of Tshwane in 2004. |