Correlates of sexual inactivity and met need for contraceptives among young women in Ghana

Abstract

A focus on contraceptive use among sexually active or exposed women alone obfuscates the actual behaviour of women with regards to the two main proximate determinants of young women’s fertility. [...]understanding the correlates of preventive sexual behaviour, including contraceptive use and current abstinence, among young women is vital to enhancing the development and implementation of preventive reproductive health services [17]. [...]a greater percentage of women with no previous pregnancy terminations were abstinent while higher proportions of those with pregnancy terminations either had an unmet (39.1%) or met (37.8%) need. [...]the likelihood of a met need also declined as number of living children declined for all and single women. [...]as expected with questions eliciting sensitive information from young people, the self-reported information may be subject to misreporting and recall biases.