Fertility Awareness and Contraceptive Use: A Study of Reproductive Age Women in Ghana

Sarah D. Compton, University of Michigan

The purpose of this analysis is to examine the association between fertility awareness knowledge, and contraceptive use among Ghanaian women of reproductive age. This study used data from the 2017 Ghana Maternal Health Survey. We extracted and analyzed relevant data (i.e., socio-demographic characteristics, sexual behavior, fertility-related characteristics, and contraceptive use) using a logistic regression. Odds Ratios (OR) and marginal effects were estimated, and statistical significance was set at P=0.05. In logistic regression, the factors significantly associated with knowing a woman’s fertile period were: age, education, wealth, previous pregnancy, previous abortion, rural residence, and using periodic abstinence. Almost two-thirds of the women in our study did not know when a woman’s fertile period was, although significantly more women who rely of periodic abstinence answered this question correctly.