Abstract

Family planning, a pillar of safe motherhood is known for its benefits including limiting
unwanted pregnancies and reducing infant and maternal mortality and morbidity. This
research aimed to explore factors which influence the utilization of FP among women of
reproductive age (15-49) attending Fort Portal regional referral hospital in Fort portal city. A
cross-sectional descriptive study design was used and a total of 292 randomly selected
women of reproductive age (15-49) at Fort Portal Regional Referral Hospital were enrolled
into the study. Data on the current use of family planning and related factors was collected
using a researcher-administered questionnaire, checked for completeness and analyzed
using the statistical package for social sciences (SPSS) software version 25. Factors
influencing family planning utilization were determined using logistic regression analysis
and Qui square test while statistical significance was determined at p-value≤0.05 and 95%
confidence interval. The prevalence of contraceptive utilization was 29.79%.Our results
indicated that age, marital status, parity, number of living children, age of the youngest child,
time to have the next child, mode of delivery, partner discussion about family planning and
female approval of family planning use were important predictors of family planning
utilization at bivariate logistic regression analysis while only the age of the youngest child
and expected time to have another child significantly influenced family planning utilization
at multivariate regression analysis. Age of the youngest child and the expected time to have
another child significantly influenced family planning utilization. Family planning utilization
was low far way below the national family planning strategy target thus more efforts needed
to improve family planning utilization among women of reproductive age if the national
family planning target is to be achieved.