Barriers to Family Planning Service Utilization in Ethiopia: A Qualitative Study

BACKGROUND: The unmet need for family planning (FP) is a
major impediment to achieving the sustainable development goal.
The COVID-19 pandemic and other contextual, individual, and
hospital-related problems are major barriers that reduce FP service
uptake. However, most of the studies are quantitative and give due
focus to individual and community-level barriers. Therefore, this
study tends to explore barriers to the utilization of FP in Ethiopia
including health care and contextual barriers.
METHODS: A multiple explorative case study design was
employed from October to December 2021 and a total of 41 Keyinformant interviews, 32 in-depth interviews, and 13 focus group
discussions were performed by using the purposive sampling
technique. The data were analyzed with a thematic content
analysis approach using NVivo software.
RESULT: This study explored barriers to FP in four major teams;
individual, community-related, health system, and contextual
barriers. It reviled that the community’s misconception, fear of side
effects, lack of women’s decision-making autonomy, existing sociocultural norms, religious conditions, topography, covid 19
pandemic, and conflict were the major barriers to FP service
utilization.
CONCLUSION: Using the four teams mentioned above, this study
identified different poor health professional skills, misconceptions,
pandemics, functional, and structurally related barriers. As a
result, it is recommended that health education for the community
and training for health professionals are important. Collaboration
between government and non-government organizations is also
mandatory for strengthening mentorship and supervision systems
and establishing resilient health care that can avoid future
pandemics.