Unwanted and unintended pregnancies pose major reproductive health challenges to women throughout
the world. Despite the availability of modern contraceptives, many women and men fail to use
contraceptives effectively. This research focussed on reasons for not using contraceptives
effectively in the Northern Tshwane area of the Gauteng Province of the Republic of South Africa
(RSA).
Structured interviews were conducted with 83 women and 71 men about their contraceptive practices.
Age, religion, educational level and residential areas influenced clients' contraceptive
practices. These results were categorised for adult males and females as well as for adolescent
males and females. Adolescents encountered problems in accessing contraceptive services. Adult
females knew most about traditional contraceptives, although men knew about some of these methods,
and adolescents used some of them. All respondents could gain additional knowledge about modern
contraceptives. The respondents' knowledge about ยท emergency contraceptives was extremely
limited. Although most respondents knew about legalised choice on.termination of pregnancy (CTOP)
services in the RSA, they did not know when nor how to access these services.
Nurses working in contraceptive health services, revealed during a focus group discussion that
a lack of resources (including shortages of malcondoms, contraceptive injections and oral
contraceptives) hampered the quality of services that could be rendered. Of particular
concern was the nonavailability of Norplant implants and female condoms. Nurses expressed a need
for pecific national policy guidelines about supplying contraception to adolescents. Although most
nurses knew about emergency contraceptives, they did not promote its use
because they assumed that clients would misuse emergency contraceptives.instead of using
contraceptives regularly. The nurses indicated that very few facilities offered CTOP services.
The nurses regarded women who obtained repeated CTOPs to be misusing these services and
suggested that limitations should be placed on the number-of times any woman could obtain
such services. The negative attitudes of community members and of colleagues towards
persons working in CTOP services caused hardships for them. Recommendations address ways in which
contraceptive services could be improved. / Health Studies / D. Litt. et Phil. (Advanced Nursing Sciences)
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:unisa/oai:uir.unisa.ac.za:10500/880 |
| Date | 11 1900 |
| Creators | Maja, Todd Mamutle Mavis |
| Contributors | Ehlers, Valerie Janet, 1948-, King, Letitia Jacoba, 1945- |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Format | 1 online resource |
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