Abstract

Background: Unmet need refers to women of reproductive age who wish to avoid a pregnancy but are not using a contraceptive method. The family planning is regarded as one of the major public health successes in the past decades. Aim: To measure the prevalence and delineate the factors affecting the unmet need for family planning among married women attending primary health care centers in Al-Najaf City. Method: Across-sectional interviewing study targeting 200 currently married women in reproductive age (15-49years) attending PHCCs in Al-Najaf city, the data collected from the 1st of April to the 31st of August 2023, primary health care centers were selected by simple random sampling and participants who met the inclusion criteria were selected by convenient sampling, data were collected by using validated questionnaire from similar studies via face-to-face interviews. The collected data adapted from the revised unmet need for family planning Demographic Health Survey (DHS) were analyzed using the statistical package for the social sciences (SPSS) program version 26 and the unmet need was calculated using the new revised algorithm. Results: The prevalence of unmet need for family planning was 14% (9%for limiting 5% for spacing). Unmet need significantly associated with women’s age, women`s education level and their partner’s education level P-values were (0.009), (0.001), (0.039) respectively and was also related to parity, number of living children, female children all had the same P-value which was (0.001). 54% did not use contraception due to many reasons related to health, religion, culture and finance. Conclusion: the prevalence of unmet need for family planning is relatively high, although the availability of contraception methods in health institutions are free or subsidized and they are easy to obtain from the pharmacies