Contraceptive Discontinuation, Method Switching and Associated Factors among Reproductive Age Women in Jimma Town, Southwest Ethiopia, 2013

Background: Although there has been an increase in preference for modern methods in Ethiopia in recent years, high method discontinuation and switching are also common. Apparently, there is a lot of study on the prevalence rate of contraceptive among couples, but not sufficient knowledge about the reasons switches the method used and why they give up the contraceptives after using for some time. This implies that the study of discontinuation of contraceptive use, along with the associated factors for such discontinuation, becomes important that would have further implications for continuing the success of family planning programs in Ethiopia. Methods and Materials: A community based cross sectional study was conducted among 423 randomly selected reproductive age women. Pretested structured questionnaire which contain calendar data format were used. Both SPSS version 20 and MS-excel were used to compute the descriptive and life table analysis. Descriptive and life table analysis technique were employed to estimate discontinuation. Cox-regression was used to evaluate statistical significance of covariate with a p-value less or equal to 0.05. Results: The life table analysis depicted to be 11.5% and 27.4% women discontinued within 12 months and 24 months respectively. Contraceptive discontinuation was found to be highest for the contraceptive pills (30.0%) of twelve months rate. The rate of switching to other contraceptive method by the end of first year was much higher (9.6%) than rate of abandoning (1.5%). Divorced women [AHR: 2.52, 95% CI: (1.17, 5.41)], poor quality of services [(AHR: 1.87, 95% CI: (1.34, 2.61)], and education level [(AHR 1.59, 95% CI: (1.01, 2.49)] were predictors of contraceptive discontinuation. Conclusion: Contraceptive discontinuation was relatively high. Being divorced, poor service quality and low level of education were predictors of contraceptive discontinuation. Further emphasis on quality of care, and expanding access to a range of contraceptive methods should be addressed.