Intention to use contraceptives and its determinants among adolescent women of Tigray, Northern Ethiopia

Abstract

Background: Access to contraceptive methods has the potential to reduce maternal and child mortality. Intention to modern contraceptive uptake appears to be the best predictor of actual uptake of contraceptive. This study aimed to assess the intention to use contraceptives and its determinants among adolescent women in Tigray.
Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted on 1755adolescent women. A binary logistic regression analysis was fitted to assess the determinants of intention to use contraceptives among the adolescent women and odds ratio with 95% CI was used to assess associations at a 0.05 level of significance
Results: The magnitude of intention to use of a contraceptive method in the near future was 70.3%. The odds of intention to use of modern contraceptive was higher among older adolescents (AOR=1.11; 95%CI:1.01-1.21), who knew at least one contraceptive method (AOR=4.73; 95%CI:2.26-6.87), previous contraceptive use (AOR=2.66; 95%CI:1.68-4.22), did not fear of side effects (AOR=1.68; 95%CI:1.22-2.33), did not feel shy to buy contraceptive (AOR=2.54; 95%CI:2.01-3.21).Moreover, adolescents with college or above education were more likely to have intention to use of contraceptive in the near future (AOR=3.53, 95%CI:1.15-10.83).
Conclusion: Seven in ten adolescent women have intention to use contraceptives in Tigray. The factors reported for not having the intention to use modern contraceptives were fear of side effects, shyness to buy contraceptives, and lack of information about contraceptives. Solving the barriers and promoting the contraceptive methods through media could improve intention to use of contraceptive methods.