Five year review of intrauterine contraceptive device use in Federal Medical Centre Owerri, Nigeria

Abstract

Background: Unplanned pregnancy poses a major public health challenge in women of reproductive age, especially in developing countries. The intrauterine device contraceptive (IUCD) is a widely used method of contraception.

Objective: This study aimed to determine the contraceptive prevalence at this centre, the socio-demographic characteristics and other parameters among clients that accepted intrauterine contraceptive device insertion.

Materials/Methods:  This was a five year retrospective study of the period January 2010-December 2014. The family planning register of the department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, Federal Medical Center (FMC) Owerri was used to trace the case records of the clients who had accepted intrauterine contraceptive devices over the 5-year period.  Statistical package for Social Sciences version 17 for Windows was used to analyze the data. Chi-squared tests were used and differences were considered significant if P < 0.05

Results: During the period under review 900 clients out of 2511 acceptors of family planning method in FMC had IUCD insertion giving an  a prevalence of 35.8%. About 65.3% were para > 5.  The total percentage of clients that had at least primary education was 90.49% while 92.7% of the women were married in a stable relationship. The main indication for IUCD use in FMC was completion of family size in 82.9%.  Over the five year period, the uptake of emergency IUCD insertion was however low (0.67%). There was no statistically significant difference in the uptake of IUCD (p=0.16)

Conclusion: Utilization of IUCD in our centre is high; therefore there is a need for continuous reinforced counselling of clients, training of personnel in insertion and its use in other situations like emergency contraception.