ABSTRACT

This study was carried out to assess the factors affecting the utilization of family planning services by married women in Calabar Municipality, Cross River State. Three specific objectives, three research questions and two null hypotheses were formulated to guide the study. Descriptive survey design was adopted .Simple random sampling technique was use to select three wards in calabar municipality and systematic sampling technique was use to select the eligible household. Structured questionnaire with reliability of 0.95 was used for data collection and was administered to the women using direct contact approach with 98.98% return rate. The results revealed  major factors affecting the utilization of family planning services among married women in Calabar Municipality as spousal disapproval (59.8%), fear of contraceptive side effects (25.7%), culture (40.2%). The hypothesis which stated that there is no significant relationship between factors affecting the utilization of family planning services and knowledge of family planning services among married women in Calabar Municipality was rejected as the X2-calculated value (124.423) was greater than X2-critical value (24.996) and the second hypothesis which stated that there is no significant association between factors affecting the utilization of family planning services and the utilization of family planning methods by married women in Calabar Municipality was also rejected since the X2- calculated value (195.574) was greater than X2- critical value (30.144) at 0.05 level of significance. The results also showed that married women in Calabar Municipality had good knowledge of family planning services, but knowledge however did not translate to contraceptive utilization as most (42.3%) of these women reported non utilization of any of the contraceptive methods. In view of this, the implications to nursing were highlighted. It was recommended among others that effective educational and counselling intervention should be employed to improve male involvement and women’s knowledge which would subsequently lead to higher family planning utilization.