| dc.description.abstract | From a reproductive health and rights based perspective, all women should have access to contraceptive methods that allow them to avoid unintended pregnancies. HIV positive women have particular need for contraception - to avoid unwanted pregnancy, protect their own health and to eliminate the risk of vertical transmission. Many studies in Africa and the world over have mainly focused on determinants of contraceptive use among child bearing women. Few studies
however have sought to understand the interrelationship between HIV and contraceptive use. This study therefore sought to establish factors that influence contraceptive use among child bearing HIV positive women in Kenya, and to compare these with factors that influence contraceptive use among HIV negative women to determine if these factors were significantly different. Using data from the 2008/2009 KDHS, a total of 3811 women were used as a unit of analysis and their demographic, socio-economic, socio-cultural characteristics were analyzed. Bivariate and multivariate analyses were used to establish the relationship between selected independent variables, HIV sero-status and contraceptive use.
The study findings showed that the level of education, wealth index and marital status were the most significant determinants of contraceptive use among HIV positive women. Women with secondary and above level of education, women classified as being in middle and rich households and women in unions were significantly more likely to use contraceptives. In HIV negative women however, the study findings revealed that age, number of living children, level of education, wealth index, marital status, religion and future fertility desire were the significant determinants of contraceptive use, with significant differences compared to HIV positive women.
The findings of this study indicate there is need for programmes to set up efforts to fully understand the causes of the differences in the determinants of contraceptive use among the HIV positive women and HIV negative women if they are to bridge the gap in the usage of contraception between the two groups. Such efforts should include, for the HIV positive women, emotional, behavioural and medical factors. The address of uptake of contraception among HIV positive women will reduce their own health risks and help greatly in the prevention of vertical transmission. | en_US |
