Objective: To identify the perceptions of rural women about modern contraceptive methods and to ascertain the
psycho-social and economic attitude of women about family planning methods.
Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted at the University of Sargodha, Sargodha, Pakistan, from
December 2014 to March 2015, and comprised married women. The sample wasselected using multistage sampling
technique through Fitzgibbon table. They were interviewed regarding use of family planning methods. . SPSS 16 was
used for data analysis.
Results: Of the 500 women, 358(71.6%) were never-users and 142(28.4%) were past-users of family planning
methods. Moreover, 52(14.5%) of never-users did not know about a single modern contraceptive method. Of the
past-users, 43(30.3%) knew about 1-3 methods and 99(69.7%) about 4 or more methods. Furthermore, 153(30.6%)
respondents graded condoms as good, 261(55.2%) agreed that family planning helped in improving one's standard
of living to a great extent while 453(90.6%) indicated that family planning methods were not expensive. Besides,
366(71.2%) respondents believed that using contraceptive method caused infertility.
Conclusion: Dissatisfaction with methods, method failure, bad experiences with side effects, privacy concerns and
different myths associated to the methods were strongly related to the non-usage of modern contraceptive
methods.