Abstract

fertility, make informed decision on the number of children they want to have. The purpose
of this study was to assess the factors contributing to the underutilization of artificial
contraceptive methods among female nursing students of KIU Ishaka-Bushenyi. The study
employed a descriptive cross-sectional design, a simple random sampling technique was
used to get a total of 189 students who participated in the study, a self-administered
questionnaire was used for data collection, data was analyzed using quantitative
methodology where it was entered in analysis software, analyzed and presented using tables,
frequencies, columns and pie charts using SPSS version 20.0. The results showed that
majority of the respondents (65.0%) reported not having used artificial contraceptive
methods. The majority (63.4%) of the respondents who reported not having utilized artificial
contraceptives were between the age of 28 and 32 years. Also, majority of the respondents
(66.7%) were in first and fourth year and culture (43.4%) were among the major contributing
factors to underutilization of artificial contraceptive methods, also fear of side effects
whereby (64.6%) of the respondents reported that fear of side effects made them not to use
artificial contraceptives and having one sexual partner contributed to underutilization of
artificial contraceptives. Majority of the respondents reported having not used artificial
contraceptive methods. In conclusion, age, religion, year of study and culture were among
the major contributing factors to underutilization of artificial contraceptive methods also fear of side effects and having one sexual partner contributed to underutilization of artificial
contraceptives.