**4. Discussion of findings**

The study examined the knowledge and use of intra uterine device by women attending antenatal clinic of Enugu State Teaching Hospital, Parklane, Enugu.

73.8% of the respondents have heard about IUD. The highest number of the study participants identified friends/relatives (37.2%) as their source of information and 69.4% are aware that the facility offers intrauterine device services. This can conclusively be interpreted as a good level of knowledge on the part of the respondents. The tertiary level of education attained by the majority of the respondents may have been contributory to their level of knowledge. This goes in line with the results of the work by Eastman [10] which showed that only 12% of participants did not know what an IUD is. Contrary to the present study, 50% of the respondents learned about IUDs from professionals (including physicians, nurses and teachers) according to Eastman [10]. However, this finding disagrees with the work Sharma and Pal [11], whose results showed that regarding knowledge on different aspects of IUD, less than half of the study population (44.8%) had good knowledge regarding IUD. Also in disagreement is the findings by Westhuizen and Hanekom [4] which revealed that only 49.2% reported having heard about IUD.

Their good level of knowledge did not translate into a good usage as their level of usage was poor. Among all family planning methods enlisted, IUD was used by only 14.0% of the respondents. Of this proportion, 56.5% would recommend IUD to other women. These findings can be comparable with that of Mbuthia et al. [8] which noted that knowledge of IUD did not affect its uptake by participants as only 30 women were using IUD as a contraceptive method. These results were also found to be in concordance with that of Igwe [12] where the uptake rate of IUD was 13.2%. The major reasons for use identified were long lasting (60.9%) and quick reversal on removal (52.2%). These findings conform to the submissions of Bryant et al. [13], where almost all women mentioned multiple benefits of the IUD which included being long lasting, reversible and convenient. Similarities in the result were noted by Gbagbo and Kayi [2] where the respondents said their reason for IUD was their desire for long-acting family planning method (24%). Gomez and Freihart [14], in their

study also identified that the study participants who chose IUD gave their reasons to be: ease of use, lack of requisite maintenance, effectiveness, long lasting, reduces cramps and makes period lighter and easily reversible.

Only 34.8% found some side effects associated with its use. The commonly experienced side effects identified were irregular bleeding (75.0%) and vaginal discharge (62.5%). The findings of this present study support that of Olamijulo et al. [15] whose results revealed that 32.6% of the IUCD users experienced some form of undesirable effects in association with its use. The most common undesirable effects reported by the clients were abnormal vaginal discharge (40.8%) while the least was dyspareunia (0.7%). Also slightly comparable is the findings of Igwe [12] which also showed that 7.8% of the clients had side effects that include abdominal pain (44.4%), menorrhagia (22.2%).
