Level and determinants of long-acting family planning utilization among reproductive age women in Harar, Eastern Ethiopia

BACKGROUND: Ethiopia’s population is currently estimated to be 117,814,659 people and continues to have countries with the highest maternal mortality rates. Family planning is one of the most effective techniques for lowering mother and child mortality, in addition to limiting rapid population expansion. OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study was to assess level and determinants of long-acting family planning method among reproductive age women in Harar, Eastern Ethiopia, 2021 METHOD: Community-based cross-sectional study was conducted among 845 randomly selected reproductive age women. Data were collected by trained data collector using pretested structured questionnaire. Data were coded and entered into Epidata v.3 and analyzed using SPSS v.26 software. Descriptive statistics, bivariate and multivariate logistic regression analysis was used. Variable with p-value less than 0.05 was declared as statistically significant. RESULT: The prevalence of long-acting family planning method was 74.7%, while 53.6% and 46.4% was from rural and urban, respectively. The mean age of participants was 28.5 (± 5.6) years. Married women four times (AOR: 4.1; 95% CI: 1.6, 10.4) more likely to use long-acting family planning method than single women. Women with educated husband four times (AOR: 4.4; 95% CI: 1.8, 10.6) more likely to use long-acting family planning method than women with illiterate husband. CONCLUSION: There is high level of utilization of long-acting family planning. The women’s marital status, increased education level of husbands, increasing in age of women, intention to spacing birth, and having less than five children were found to significantly increase the utilization of long-acting family planning.