Journal of Health, Medicine and Nursing www.iiste.org ISSN 2422-8419 An International Peer-reviewed Journal Vol.15, 2015 62 UTILIZATION OF LONG ACTING AND PERMANENT FAMILY PLANNING METHODS AMONG WOMENS VISITING FAMILY PLANNING CLINIC IN ARBA MINCH HOSPITAL. Wanzahun Godana 1* , Fikadu Wondmu 2 , Gebremaryam Temesgen 2 , Gize Timer 2 , Jemal Yesuf 2 , Messay Habte 2 , Mohammed Abdi 2 1 Department of Public Health, College of Medicine and Health Sciences, Arba Minch University. 2 Department of Midwifery, College of Medicine and Health Sciences, Arba Minch University Abstract Background: maternal health improvement is dependent on availability and utilizations of reproductive health services including family planning. Family planning is assumed to prevent 187 million unintended pregnancies and nearly 60 million unplanned births. This study aimed to assess the utilization of long acting family planning methods in Arba Minch Hospital. Methods: Health facility based cross-sectional was conducted in Arba Minch Town. The study included women of reproductive age who were visiting Arba Minch General hospital. Data was collected by interviewer administered questionnaire and analyzed by SPSS software version 20. Results: One hundred forty four (88.88%) of the respondents took FP methods during the study. From these women most 88(61.15%) of them took Depo-Provera. In this study utilization of long acting family planning methods was 22.9%. The commonly used long acting methods were IUCD 5.55% and Implanon 17.3%. Conclusion and Recommendations: utilization of long acting family planning methods in the study area was low. Increasing the awareness and resolving the perception of clients on wrong assumption need to be corrected through health education. Key words: long acting methods, utilizations, reproductive health, Arba Minch, Ethiopia 1 INTRODUCTION Family planning is the way of controlling birth and allows people to attain their desired number of children and determine the spacing of pregnancies. Access to family planning through preferred and effective methods contributes to health of mothers supports the health and development of community (1, 2). Currently, women in the developing countries are using some form of family planning. Despite this, there is reported lack of access to contraceptives. Providing these women with the services they need would prevent an additional 52 million unintended pregnancies and 23 million unplanned births each year and contributes to maternal health. (4) In the past 40 years, family-planning programs have played a major part in raising the prevalence of contraceptive from less than 10% to 60% and reducing fertility in developing countries from six to about three births per woman. However, in half of the 75 larger low-income and lower-middle income countries, contraceptive practice remains low. Reaching Millennium Development Goals makes greater investment in family planning in these countries (5).Between 1990 and 2000, total fertility in Ethiopia declined from 6.4 to 5.9 births per woman. This is a significant achievement. In rural areas, women bear an average of 6.4 children – nearly double that of their urban counterparts (4). Population growth, meanwhile, remains around 2.7 percent annually, making Ethiopia Africa’s second most populous country with an estimated population of 77.4 million in2005(6).