Health Providers and Recommended Family Planning Guidelines in Benin

Abstract

Despite global commitments of policy makers to improve maternal health through capacity strengthening and provision of high-quality reproductive health services, family planning services still face great challenges in Africa. A nationwide cross-sectional study conducted in 2019 in Benin involving health facilities showed gaps in Knowledge Attitudes and Practices (KAP) in meeting family planning guidelines. A total of 446 health providers were interviewed. Data analysis relied on the calculation of tertiles and chi-square tests were computed to assess the differences at 5% level of significance. Results reveal that most health providers (92.9%) showed a good knowledge of the standard guidelines of FP, one fourth (23.4%) showed a wrong knowledge of the advantages and about half (51.6%) of them lacked extended knowledge of FP methods. Results also underscore discrepancies between most providers’ attitudes and existing FP guidelines which were in line with the inadequate practices showed by half of respondents. Results underscore the need for the development and implementation of basic training programs and capacity strengthening interventions toward health providers in order to improve performances of FP services in Benin.