Assessment of Knowledge, Attitude and Practice of Family Planning among Married Evangelical Women in six Evangelical Churches in Gulele Sub city, Addis Ababa

Master's Thesis from the year 2015 in the subject Theology - Miscellaneous, grade: 3.0, , language: English, abstract: Family planning is a means to control and decide the size of the family and spacing of children by using different methods. Addressing family health issues in the church allows the church to meet the needs of its members holistically. In Ethiopia the prevalence of family planning has 34% increase within the past 14 years. Church based cross-sectional study conducted to assess the knowledge, attitude and practice of family planning among married evangelical women in selected evangelical churches and the views of the church leaders in Gulele sub-city, Addis Ababa with the objectives to evaluate the knowledge, attitude and practice of family planning among evangelical married women and to understand/ describe the influence of the church doctrine/ teachings on marriage in shaping the views and usage of family planning services by the members. All of the married women are aware of family planning, the majority, that is, 64 (39.0%) responded they do not know what the Bible says about family planning, 109 (66.5%) answered that using contraceptives is not sin whereas51 (31.1%) affirmed its sinfulness. 127 (77.4%) replied health related issues like family planning must be included in the church. Out of the 164 respondents only 117 (71.3%) have ever used family planning methods. The different denominations in the study show more of a similar attitude towards family planning regardless of some doctrinal differences among them. All of the leaders agree on the need of planning in order to keep the wellbeing of the family. Family issues like family health are not as such given due attention in the six evangelical denominations. There is an overall awareness and positive attitude of family planning by the married women and the church leaders. However, the perception of the leaders about contraceptives is rather shallow.