ABSTRACT
Introduction: Reproductive health issues are
responsible for one-third of health problems among women. Having lack of access
to contraception is one of the major risk factors. Woman refugees often face
discrimination and they have limited access to basic needs including
healthcare. These have caused an increase to the woman’s reproductive health
issues. Objectives: Along with identifying the reproductive health
issues, this study aims to evaluate family planning (FP) through assessment of
three components of knowledge, attitude and practice. Methodology: This
study is a cross-sectional study involving Rohingya female refugees attending
the Islamic Medical Association of Malaysia (IMAM) Response and Relief Team
(IMARET) Mobile Clinic in Selayang, Selangor, Malaysia. Data collection was
done through questionnaires with the help of trained translators. Results and Discussions: Reproductive health issue has a minor and
negative correlation with all three domains of Knowledge, Attitude and Practice
of family planning, (r = -0.11, r = -0.22, and r = -0.18, p > 0.05) respectively. Out of 86 respondents only (n = 7, 8.1%)
had at least one reproductive health issue, whereas none reported having
sexually transmitted diseases. The most common reproductive health issues
reported were pre-eclampsia and gestational diabetes (n = 5, 71.4%
respectively). Knowledge on contraception methods was poor in the Rohingya
female refugees while the practice of contraceptive in this study was only
33.7%. Among the contraception methods used, almost half (n = 15, 51.7%) have
used contraceptive pills followed by injection (n = 8, 27.6%), whereas the
least practiced method was condoms (n = 2, 6.9%). This study finds that 57% of
the respondents had positive attitudes towards family planning. Majority (n =
53, 61.6%) agreed on the use of contraception to control birth interval and
more than half of the respondents (n = 54, 62.8%) said that the benefit of
contraception outweighs the negative effects. Conclusion: Limited
knowledge and practice of contraception methods were found among the Rohingya
female refugees, however, majority showed positive attitude on family planning.
In conclusion, there is urgent need to improve the family planning education
among the Rohingya female refugees to increase practice of contraceptives. This
study is of guiding significance for improving the reproductive health of
refugee women, but there are still some problems in the article, which need to
be revised.