NATIONAL JOURNAL OF MEDICAL RESEARCH print ISSN: 2249 4995│eISSN: 2277 8810 Volume 4│Issue 1│Jan – Mar 2014 Page 7 ORIGINAL ARTICLE A COMMUNITY BASED CROSS-SECTIONAL STUDY TO ASSESS THE UNMET NEED OF FAMILY PLANNING IN URBAN SLUMS AND IT’S DETERMINANTS IN WESTERN PART OF INDIA Beena H Patel 1 , Kapil M Gandha 2 , Hetal T Koringa 1 , Jitesh P Mehta 3 , Dipesh V Parmar 4 , Sudha B Yadav 4 Authors’ Affiliations: 1 Final year resident; 2 Assistant Professor; 3 Associate Professor; 4 Professor, Department of PSM, MP Shah Govt. Medical College, Jamnagar Corresponding Author: Dr Kapil Gandha, Email: kapilgandha@gmail.com ABSTRACT Context: Unmet need is a valuable indicator of National Family Planning Programme. It shows how well the pro- gramme achieves the key mission of meeting the population’s felt need of family planning. It is added to the 5 th MDG as an indicator concerned with maternal health. Aims: To find out 1.) Unmet need of family planning and 2.) Its determinants. Settings and Design: A community based cross sectional study was done among married women of age 15-45 years of urban slums in Jamnagar city. Methods and Material: total 200 study participants were selected by systemic random sampling and interviewed by using pretested semi-structured Performa. Statistical analysis used: Microsoft excel was used for data entry and analysis done by software Epi-info. Results: overall level of unmet need was 20.50%. It was found to be influenced by various socio-demographic fac- tors (age of women, gender of last child and accessibility to the service providers) and these associations were found statistically significant. Number of living children, occupation, and period of active married life, religion and collec- tive decision had no any effect on unmet need. (No statistically significant associations). Major reasons for not using any methods were inconvenience (51.22%), refusal by spouse/family members (21.95%) and lack of knowledge (19.51%) Conclusions: unmet need was higher in more fertile age-group therefore program should focus more on this age- group. Female education contributes significantly in reduction of unmet need. By encouraging inter-spousal com- munication and male participation for family planning decision-making is important in bridging the gap between met and unmet need. Key words: Unmet need, contraception, family planning, reproductive health, Urban Slums INTRODUCTION The concepts of unmet need for family planning points to the gap between some women’s reproductive inten- tions and their contraceptive behaviour [1] . Unmet need included all women who are married and presumed to be sexually active, who were not using any method of contraception and who either did not want to have any more child or wanted to postpone their next birth for at least two more years [2] . In 2006, unmet need for family planning was added to the 5 th millennium development goal (MDG) as an indicator for tracing process on im- proving maternal health [3] . Family planning can reduce maternal mortality by reducing the number of pregnan- cies, number of abortions and the proportion of births at high risks. It can help to reduce infant mortality, slow the spread of HIV/AIDS, promote gender equality, reduce poverty, accelerate socio-economic develop- ment, women empowerment and promote the envi- ronment [4] . Unmet need is a valuable programme be- cause it shows how well they are achieving a key mis- sion: meeting the population’s felt need for family plan- ning [5] . Unmet need can be a powerful concept for fam- ily planning .It poses challenge to family planning pro- gramme - to reach and serve millions of women whose reproductive attitude resembles those of contraceptive user but who are for some reason or combination of reasons are not using contraceptives. According to NFHS-3- 13% of married women have unmet need for family planning down from 20% in NFHS-1 and 16% in NFHS-2 [6] [7] .The present study was carried out with the objectives to estimate the magnitude of unmet need for family planning among married women of reproduc- tive age, to identify socio demographic factors associ-