RESEARCH ARTICLE Open Access Contraceptive use and unmet need for family planning among HIV positive women on antiretroviral therapy in Kumasi, Ghana Dennis Odai Laryea 1* , Yaw Ampem Amoako 2 , Kathryn Spangenberg 3 , Ebenezer Frimpong 4 and Judith Kyei-Ansong 4 Abstract Background: A key strategy for minimizing HIV infection rates especially via reduction of Mother– to-Child transmission is by reducing the unmet need for family planning. In Ghana, the integration of family planning services into Antiretroviral Therapy services for persons living with HIV/AIDS has largely been ignored. We set out to measure the prevalence of modern methods of contraception, the unmet need for family planning and to identify factors associated with the use of modern methods of contraception among HIV positive women on anti retroviral therapy. Methods: This was a descriptive cross sectional study of HIV positive women in their reproductive ages accessing care at an adult Antiretroviral Therapy Clinic in Kumasi, Ghana. Data was collected using a structured questionnaire. Data analysis was conducted using Epi Info version 7.1.2.0. Results: A total of 230 women were included in the study. Fifty six percent were in the 30–39 year age group. The mean age (SD) was 36.3 (5.4) years. While 53.5% of respondents desired to have children, partner desire for children was reported by 54.6% of respondents with partners. About 74% had received information on contraception from their provider. 42.6% of participants and/or their partners were using a contraception method at the time of study; the male condom (79.6%) being the most commonly used method. The estimated unmet need for contraception was 27.8%. Contraceptive use was strongly associated with partner knowledge of HIV status (AOR = 3.64; 95% CI 1.36–9.72; p = 0.01) and use of a contraceptive method prior to diagnosis of HIV (AOR = 6.1; 2.65–14.23; p < 0.001). Conclusion: Contraceptive Prevalence is high among HIV positive women in Kumasi compared with the general Ghanaian population. Despite this, there still is a high unmet need for family planning in this population. We recommend continuous education on contraceptives use to HIV patients accessing HAART services to further increase contraceptive uptake. Keywords: Contraception, Unmet need, Ghana, HIV positive women Background The advent of Highly Active Antiretroviral Therapy (HAART) has resulted in significant improvements in the health of persons living with the Human Immuno- deficiency Virus (HIV) [1]. Globally, an estimated 34 million persons are living with HIV [2] with about 9.7 million people on HAART at the end of 2012 [3]. In Ghana, an estimated 59,000 out of the 270,000 persons living with the virus are on antiretroviral therapy (ART) [4,5]. Provision of ART services in Ghana started in 2003 through the National AIDS/STI Control Programme (NACP) [5,6]. Contraception and family planning are key to improving the health of a population because of the associated benefits [7]. Women on HAART are at increased risk of conception because of improved immunity and physical health, which may lead to more frequent sexual intercourse. Although Ghana ’ s HIV prevalence, fertility and population growth rates are relatively low compared to other sub-Saharan African nations, the rather low contraceptive prevalence rate of 25% despite an almost universal knowledge on at least one method of contraception [7,8] presents a challenge to * Correspondence: dlaryea@kathhsp.org 1 Public Health Unit, Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital, PO Box 1934, Kumasi, Ghana Full list of author information is available at the end of the article © 2014 Laryea et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated. Laryea et al. BMC Women's Health 2014, 14:126 http://www.biomedcentral.com/1472-6874/14/126