Background and Objectives: Unmet need for contraception is the gap between women's reproductive intentions and their contraceptive behavior. This community based interventional study was carried out to determine the unmet needs for contraception, the reasons for this and to assess the impact of interventional measures on acceptance of contraception.
Subjects and Methods: This study was conducted in 52 villages in the state of Maharashtra, India, among 363 married women selected by cluster sampling. Data was collected using an interview guide. An intervention was done for the women who had an unmet need and an assessment of the change was done subsequently. Data was analyzed by using SPSS.
Results The prevalence of contraceptive usage was 59.2% and the prevalence of unmet need for contraception was 44% (160). The unmet need for spacing births was 53.8%, 38.7% for limiting births and 7.5% women were dissatisfied with the current contraceptive method. The reasons ranged from side effects to contraceptives to source of obtaining contraceptives. Age of the respondents, education and number of living children showed statistically significant association with unmet needs. Post intervention, the contraceptive prevalence rate increased significantly 85.7% and there was a significant reduction in the unmet needs for spacing and limiting births, equally there was a significant reduction of dissatisfaction with using contraception.
Conclusion: Improvement in the use of contraception and addressing the unmet need for contraception requires community involvement and ongoing, sustained efforts by health workers to ensure quality care to the beneficiaries.
Background: Hypertension is estimated to cause4.5% of the global disease burden. The prevalence of hypertension in Malaysia is 32.2%.
Objective: To determine the prevalence of hypertension and its associated risk factors in two rural communities in Penang, Malaysia.
Methods: This cross sectional study was conducted among all consenting residents aged 18 years and above from two villages in Penang. Besides the baseline demographic information, blood pressure was measured using a manual sphygmomanometer according to the American Heart Association Guidelines.
Results: 50 out of 168 people were hypertensive, giving a prevalence rate of 29.8%. 50.0% of those found with hypertension were undiagnosed and 48.0% of those who were diagnosed with hypertension had uncontrolled blood pressure. Logistic regression analysis showed that age, history of alcohol consumption and BMI were found to be independently associated with hypertension.
Conclusions: Age, education level, alcohol consumption and BMI are important risk factors associated with the prevalence of hypertension among the villagers. These risk factors are comparable to those reported in National Health and Morbidity Survery 2006 in Malaysia.