Effect of Media Exposure on Women Utilization of Family Planning Methods and their Attitude during COVID 19 Pandemic

Abstract

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic has had an impact on women's sexual health, particularly their desire to become pregnant, mass media can play a crucial role in promoting awareness, intention, and usage of family planning methods Aim: This research aims to explore the effect of media exposure on women's utilization of family planning methods & their attitude during COVID 19. Design: A cross-sectional, descriptive study design was utilized on 334 married women. Sampling: The snow ball sampling technique was used. Tools of data collection : 1) women’s sociodemographic characteristics questionnaire, 2) Women perceived fears (WPF) questionnaire regarding the effect of COVID-19 on pregnancy,3) The Desire to Avoid Pregnancy (DAP) scale, 4) Source of information & effect of Media Exposure to Family planning message/campaign, 5) Women Attitude toward using family planning methods through media exposure. Results: 53.3% of women have a low desire to avoid pregnancy during the Covid-19 pandemic, 64.7% of the studied women reported that they didn’t use family planning methods after exposure to mass media family planning message and the majority of women (76.6%) highlighted holding positive attitudes towards utilization of family planning methods after media exposure and there was weak positive correlation for the mass media and use of family planning was found for traditional media messages Conclusion: The study concluded that women exposed to different types of media which impact their attitude positively although they did not use family planning methods during COVID-19 as they had low desire to avoid pregnancy. Recommendation: further quantitative researches should be done.