ATTITUDE KNOWLEDGE AND PRACTICE OF CONTRACEPTIVE USE AMONG FEMALE

ATTITUDE KNOWLEDGE AND PRACTICE OF CONTRACEPTIVE USE AMONG FEMALE
 
 
CHAPTER ONE
 
 
INTRODUCTION
 
 
1.1       Background to the Study
 
Sexual and reproductive health is an important issue to every stakeholder in the global health sector particularly with regard to the youth and adolescents (Tien, 2006). A number of factors are responsible for the high level of importance attached to adolescents/youth’s sexual and reproductive health. Various authors indicate that adolescent/youth’s sexual and reproductive health for most countries is in bad shape. Attahir, Sufiyan, Abdukadir and Haruna (2010) found out that the health risk faced by adolescent girls during pregnancy is very high, accounting for 15% of the Global Burden of Disease (GBD) for maternal conditions and 13% of all maternal deaths. The cause of this degenerating health condition of adolescent girls, according to Tien (2006), is lack of knowledge and access to contraception. Consequently, Tayo, Akinola, Babatunde, Adewumi, Osinusi and Shittu (2010) suggested active and intensive promotion of sexuality education, and contraceptive use among the youth in the Sub-Saharan Africa as a way of addressing this anomaly.
 
In Nigeria, Harrison (2009) observed that the countries high maternal mortality ratio (MMR) is attributed to her youth’s sexuality. The later is characterized by low contraceptive usage by the youth, high incidence of illegal abortion amongst the youth, ignorance of contraception among the youth, and lack of sex education from parents and teachers. The situation in Nigeria is likely to a reflection of the situation in the entire Africa. Such a situation made the World Health Organization Report (2010) to show that Africa’s progress in meeting the number 5 Millennium Development Goals (MDG5), in which the target is 75% reduction in the maternal mortality ratio from the year 2000, to the year 2015 remains a major challenge to health systems worldwide.

Moreover, NPC and ICF Macro Report (2009), indicate that Nigeria is remarkably slow in its progress towards the MDGs set to be attained in 2015. As we move close to 2015, MMR in Nigeria is put at over 545 per 100,000 live births, compared with other societies that have made significant progress towards the MDGs goal 5, such as U.K with about 8 per 100,000 live births, Germany and Spain 7 per 100,000 live births and France with about 10 per 100,000 live births. Also, NPC and ICF Macro (2009) have attributed the