A 5-year review of contraceptive uptake among women attending family planning clinic at Dalhatu Araf Specialist Hospital, Lafia, North-Central Nigeria

Background: Rapidly rising population in Africa is of great concern, most especially in Nigeria because of its impact on social stability. Family planning is an indispensable tool for population control and also in preventing unwanted pregnancy and its complications. Women and men at any given point in their lifetime should be able to choose the most appropriate contraceptive methods from many available options, as this is an important contributor to the successful use of contraception. Aim of the study was to determine the uptake and trend in contraceptive use from 2014-2018 in the family planning unit of a specialist hospital in the North central, Nigeria. Methods: It is a retrospective, descriptive study of contraceptive uptake of women attending family planning clinic of Dalhatu Araf Specialist Hospital (DASH), Lafia, Nasarawa State, Nigeria from 2014 to 2018. Results: Of the 5448 women accessing family planning services in the hospital within the study period, 5277 folders were retrieved with complete data. A vast majority of the women were married (99.6%) with the mean age of the subjects being 28.8±6.0 years. Contraceptive uptake was 43.2% of deliveries in the hospital. Implants (65.4%) remained the preferred contraceptive choice, followed by injectables (20.7%) and intrauterine devices (IUDs) (10.3%). Less popular were bilateral tubal ligation (BTL) (0.2%), Sayana press (0.1%) and Standard Days Methods (SDM) (0.0%). Implants, injectables and IUDs consistently remained the preferred contraceptive choices yearly throughout the studied years. Conclusions: Implants is the most popular contraception in DASH. Contraceptive uptake is relatively high among the women but there is still need to increase access to effective contraception and if possible make them freely available at all levels of health care