Book

Description

Family planning helps in regulating the number of children and determine healthy spacing and timing of births between pregnancies. Approximately 190 million women of reproductive age worldwide are not using any family planning method. The global contraceptive prevalence stands at 49.0% with Sub-Saharan Africa accounting for 29.0 %. In Kenya the modern contraceptive prevalence rate stands at 56.9% while in Marsabit County stands at 5.6%. Male spouse involvement on matters of family planning deserves attention. Male spouses can be involved through providing culturally friendly health education with child spacing messages rather than family planning itself. This study aimed at evaluate the utilization of male targeted short message service in enhancing family planning uptake among their spouses in Marsabit County. This study adopted a pre-test and posttest quasi experimental study design involving randomly selected 220 couples from Laisamis (control group) and Moyale (intervention group) sub-counties. Intervention of male targeted short message service was offered to male spouses from Moyale sub-county while Laisamis subcounty was used as a control at a ratio of 1:1 for a period of 4 months. The data collection instruments used included a questionnaire and key informant interview guides. Quantitative data analysis was done using SPSS while qualitative were categorized and analyzed thematically. At evaluation, logistic regression analysis and McNemar test were used to measure the effectiveness of SMS intervention. . All the required ethical and logistical considerations were adhered to accordingly. The results revealed that at baseline level of uptake was 13.2% and 15.4%, high level of knowledge 14.0% and 12.0% and positive attitude 38.6% and 6.8% for control and intervention arms respectively. Uptake of family planning was increased by 3.6 times though use of short message service (OR 3.6, P<0.001). Male targeted short message service increased level of knowledge significantly (OR 4.173, P 0.001), changed nature of attitude (OR 2.7335, P 0.004) and male involvement in family planning (OR 4.4306, P 0.001).