Access to family planning services for disabled women aged 18-49 and determination of related factors

In this descriptive study, which was conducted online between July 2021 and March 2022, in order to determine the access to family planning (FP) services of women aged 18-49 with disability and related factors, 144 women with disability were reached. 45.4% of women had physical/orthopedic disability, 27.7% had hearing loss and 24.1% had vision loss. The participants average age was 36.9±8.2, 59.8% were college graduates at least. 58.3% of the participants evaluated their economic status as moderate. The median ideal number of children for women was 2, and 37.5% of them had at least one pregnancy. 24.1% of pregnant women had spontaneous abortion and 16.6% had induced abortion. 36.1% of women have used an FP method so far. Of the 54 women who became pregnant, 17 had unwanted pregnancies, and 9 of them resulted in induced abortion and 5 resulted in delivery. While 28.4% of women currently use any method, 23.6% use modern methods, 13.9% are protected by condom, 5.6% by IUD and 3.4% by traditional methods. 62.5% of women who are currently married/having a partner have a request for FP method. 11.3% of women in this group had unmet FP needs. 20.1% of the women received FP training before, 20.1% of them applied to an institution for this, and 53.6% stated that they received appropriate counselling. 35.2% of women were told by a relative that a woman with disability should not have a child, 19.1% of them were told by a health personnel that they should not have children. It has been observed that those who have received FP training and women who use methods had higher FP knowledge scores. It has been suggested to carry out trainings to increase the awareness of women with disability about FP.