Aregay et al. BMC Res Notes (2018) 11:862 https://doi.org/10.1186/s13104-018-3971-8 RESEARCH NOTE Utilization of long acting reversible contraceptive methods and associated factors among female college students in Gondar town, northwest Ethiopia, 2018: institutional based cross-sectional study Woldegebrieal Aregay 1 , Telake Azale 2 , Mekonnen Sisay 1* and Kedir Abdela Gonete 1 Abstract Objectives: Family planning is achieved through use of different contraceptive methods among which the most effective methods are modern family planning methods like long acting reversible contraceptive which includes intra-uterine contraceptive device and Implants. The objective of this primary study was to assess utilization of long acting reversible contraceptive methods among female college students in Gondar town, northwest Ethiopia. Results: The overall utilization of long acting reversible contraceptive methods among students was 20.4% (95% CI 18.1, 22.7) and the most commonly utilized long acting reversible contraceptive method was Implants 96.5% (95% CI 95.50, 97.50) followed by intra-uterine contraceptive device 3.5% (95% CI 2.97, 4.00). Marital status of the respondents [AOR = 3.97 (95% CI 2.05, 7.67)], discussion about long acting reversible contraceptive methods utilization with hus- bands or boyfriends [AOR = 2.20 (95% CI 1.19–4.06)] and attitude towards implants [AOR = 0.365 (95% CI 0.14, 0.93)] were found to be significantly associated with utilization of long acting reversible contraceptive among students. Keywords: Utilization, Long acting reversible contraceptive, Female college students, Gondar, Ethiopia © The Author(s) 2018. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. 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. Introduction Family planning enables individuals and couples to antic- ipate and attain their desired number of children and spacing and timing of their births [1]. It is part of a strat- egy to reduce poverty, maternal, infant and child mortal- ity and empowers women [2] and is achieved through use of diferent modern contraceptive methods among which long acting reversible contraceptives (LARCs) like intra- uterine contraceptive device (IUCD) and implants are the most efective family planning methods [3]. By using con- traceptives, women can avoid unplanned or unwanted pregnancies, prevent unsafe abortions and spacing the births of their children which in turn benefts the health of mothers and their child [4]. If contraceptives were used efectively, most of the esti- mated 46 million induced abortions each year would not be occurred and 78,000 maternal deaths that occur due to unsafe abortion could be avoided globally [5]. In sub Saharan Africa, at least 30 women die from complica- tions of pregnancy and childbirth every day and an esti- mated 4.7 million abortions occur each year, of these, 98% are unsafe which accounts for 17% of all maternal deaths in Eastern Africa [6]. In low income countries there is a high proportion of unmet need for contraception and is estimated to be 222 million [7]. Among unmarried sexually active Ethiopian women, 26% have an unmet need for family planning and 58% are currently using contraceptive methods [4]. Around Open Access BMC Research Notes *Correspondence: mekudesu@gmail.com 1 Department of Human Nutrition, Institute of Public Health, College of Medicine and Health Sciences, University of Gondar, Gondar, Ethiopia Full list of author information is available at the end of the article