The Government of Nepal has been
implementing family planning as a priority
program for more than 30 years with an objective
to help individuals or couples avoid unwanted
births, regulate the interval between pregnancies,
control the time at which births occur and the
number of children. Various factors influence the
success of family planning programs. Religion is a
major factor that cannot be left unseen. This
background explores the factors associated with
knowledge and utilization of family planning
measures in married Muslim women of Sunsari
district in Nepal.A community-based crosssectional
study was conducted among 150 married
Muslim women selected randomly from three VDCs
of Sunsari District, Nepal. Information on
respondents’ knowledge of family planning
measures, the source of their information and their
utilization status were collected by trained Female
Community Health Volunteers through a pretested
questionnaire. Analysis of data was done with the
software, SPSS version 16.It was found that more
than half (50.7%) of the respondents were in the
age group 25-35 years of age, illiterate (43.3%)
and married before 20 years of age (88.7%).
Injectable contraceptives were the most used
(53.1%) measure of family planning. 98.7% of
respondents had heard about family planning; 64%
of them were using a modern family planning
method and only 44% had good knowledge about
family planning. Education (OR=4.182, CI
95%:1.77-9.85) and age of female (OR=1.8, CI
95%:1.51-6.745) were factors significantly
associated with good knowledge of family
planning. Likewise, education (OR=3.47, CI
95%:1.43-8.426) and types of family (OR=2.284,
CI 95%:1.254.863) were found to be significantly
associated with utilization of family planning. A
statistically significant relation did not exist
between good knowledge of family planning and its
utilization. The study shows that knowledge is not
the only factor affecting the utilization of family
planning. Other social, economic, cultural and
religious factors need to be taken into
consideration for raising the utilization of family
planning measures in Muslim society.