Many peoples either involved or not in health sector are quite indifferent to contraceptive prevalence rate in Nepal. Even I was not familiar with this term until late in my medical course when I had to get acquainted with many many terms of public health. Nepal Democratic Health Survey (NDHS), done every five years and the latest one in 2016 has revealed that there is no significant improvement in contraceptive prevalence rate of Nepal compared to five years ago.

At nepdoc, we are now covering the contraceptive prevalence rate of Nepal as per NDHS 2016 with the most details.

NDHS, 2016 has revealed that the CPR has progressively declined over the decade. The survey has unveiled that only 42.8 % population of reproductive age (15 yr-49 yr)  of this country used modern methods of contraception. Some of these methods are condoms, pills, hormonal injections and intrauterine devices

How has contraceptive prevalence rate in Nepal changed?

Over the years, the contraceptive prevalence rate (CPR) in Nepal has decreased. It was estimated to be 43.2 as per NDHS 2011. As you all have seen in the graph above, the highest prevalence of CPR is in province 3.  Condom usage, widely and easily as well as beneficial method of family planning has only 4.2% contribution to the CPR. Condom has been least accepted in province 2 (1.2%), while province 7 has considerably good usage (8.5%).

According to the same survey, the biggest contributor to contraceptive prevalence rate in Nepal is female sterilization, accounting for up to 14.7%. That’s massive! Other contributors in descending order are depot injections (8.9%), vasectomy (5.5%), oral contraceptive pills (4.6%), condom (4.2%), Implant (3.3%), intrauterine devices (1.4%) and others (~ 1%).

While the CPR has declined over the years, peoples have changed their habits to traditional methods. Compared to 7% of barrier method users of 2011, this rate has increased to 9.8%. In 2006 only 4% peoples were using these methods. In traditional method, the population using coitus interruptus is 8.7% and those using calendar method is 1.1% .

Ending thoughts:

The total contraceptive prevalence rate in Nepal is 52.6% combining both modern and traditional methods. This is far less than the country’s targeted goal of 67% (and that too by 2015!). Hope the concerned public health authorities and the ministry try their best to improve this score.