Family Planning Services in Rural Areas of province Punjab, Pakistan

Abstract

The population of Pakistan is growing everyday as the fertility rate is at second position among South-Asian countries (Ali, Azmat and Hamza 2018, 2). Pakistan is the second most populous Muslim country in the world after Indonesia although family planning services was started in mid of 1950s, but Pakistan is still struggling to control rapidly growing population (National Institute of Population Studies 2013, 91). Statistics of Pakistan had shown a miserable picture of future which gives motivation to select family planning services as the topic of research. The main objective of this study was to analyze the family planning services in rural areas of Pakistan by reviewing experiences, thoughts and feelings of providers and receivers about these services and provoke strategies to redesign family planning methods that will conquer prevailing circumstances. A literature review of existing studies was conducted to get an overview about the current situation of available family planning services in rural areas of Pakistan. Qualitative methods were selected to execute this research, for that a fieldwork was conducted in rural areas of Punjab, Pakistan. This study included 14 in-depth interviews with concerned informants at four different public health facility centers in rural area of Punjab. The data was analyzed by using the concept of diffusion of innovation theory which facilitates in identifying challenges and anticipate various strategies for development. The main challenge in the uptake of family planning services was high illiteracy rate in remote areas of Pakistan as people do not have knowledge and awareness due to lack of education which makes these people less understanding and more resistant. Various other factors also serve as obstacles in implementation of these services i.e. religion, culture, traditional belief, lack of access, poor quality of available health facilities and unprofessional staff. The suggested solution for these identified challenges was to focus on education, quality and access to services and educated and loyal staff.