Socio-Demographic Determinants of Modern Contraceptive Use among Undergraduates in Universities in Enugu State

Abstract

Modern contraceptive use is essential to the prevention of unplanned pregnancies and sexually transmitted infections. Evidences show that plethora of efforts is in place to improve use but the prevalence reports are still low. Against this backdrop, this study investigated the determinants of modern contraceptive use among undergraduates in public universities in Enugu State, Nigeria. Cross-sectional research design was used for the study. The population for the study comprised 91,107 public university students in Enugu State. The multi-stage sampling procedure was employed to select a sample of 792 respondents. Researchers’ structured questionnaire titled “Socio-Demographic Determinants of Modern Contraceptive Use Questionnaire” (SDOMCUQ) was validated by five experts and used for data collection. The internal consistency of SDOMCUQ was determined using Kuder-Richardson 20 statistic. Reliability coefficients of 0.81 was obtained for sections B and the instrument was considered reliable (> 0.70). Out of 792 copies of DOMCUQ distributed, 757 (95.58%) valid copies were used for analysis. Frequencies and percentages were used to answer the research questions. The null hypotheses were tested using bivariate and multivariate logistic regression at .05 level of significance. The findings revealed that about one-third of the undergraduates were currently using modern contraceptives while almost half had used modern contraceptive in the past. More males than females have used (male = 53.3% > female = 45.0%) and are currently using (male = 38.8% > female = 28.2%) modern contraceptives. Age, gender, marital status were significant determinants of modern contraceptive use among undergraduates in Enugu State. Recommendations were made, among which included that enlightenment on contraception should be enhance in the classrooms by public health experts to reduce the magnitude of misconception/misinformation on contraception to a minimum level and increase modern contraceptive use.