Unintended pregnancy is seen as the key concept for better understanding fertility and the unmet need for family planning. It is seen as a significant challenge among women in many developing countries, including Ghana. However, there is scarcely nationally representative information on its prevalence and predictors in Ghana.
Researchers extracted this study’s data from the 2014 Ghana Demographic and Health Survey in a cross-sectional study design. The prevalence of unintended pregnancies was computed, and Researchers fitted logit regression models to predict the factors influencing unintended pregnancies in the country.
The total prevalence of unintended pregnancies among pregnant women in Ghana was found to be 40%. Background characteristics such as age, level of education, marital status, parity, and residence region were the significant predictors of unintended pregnancy, net of unmet need for contraception. However, the unmet need for contraception serves as a significant independent predictor of unintended pregnancy regardless of respondents’ background characteristics.
The study findings strongly underscore the need for significant improvement in the access to contraception methods and family planning information to reduce unintended pregnancies in the entire country considerably.
Reference: https://www.hindawi.com/journals/jp/2019/2920491/
