Knowledge and attitude of married women towards contraceptives residing in selected slums of Udupi District

Contraceptive use allows couples to determine and ascertain the desired number of children as well as the spacing of their child births. It has a direct impact on health, wealth and well-being of people. Objectives: To assess the knowledge and attitude towards contraceptives. To find the association between knowledge, attitude and selected demographic variable. To find the relationship between knowledge and attitude towards contraceptives. Methodology: A cross sectional descriptive study was carried out among 323 married women between the age group of 18 - 45 years residing in slums of Udupi district. The Five slums were selected by simple random sampling from Udupi district. Data was collected through interview method by using structured knowledge questionnaire and attitude scale towards contraceptives. Results: The study result shows that majority 192(59.5%) of women had average knowledge, 122 (37.7%) had poor knowledge, only 9(2.7%) of women had good knowledge. Majority 321 (99.4%) of women had positive attitude towards contraceptive use. The number of living children (χ2 =9.205 p=0.008) has significant association with attitude towards contraceptive use. There was weak positive correlation between knowledge and attitude which was statistically significant (ρ=0.256, p=0.001). Conclusion: There is a need to create awareness among women of reproductive age group regarding contraceptive use.