The Role of Digital Tools in Raising Public Awareness of Family Planning Methods in Tanzania

: To address the various complications resulting from poor family planning, the government, and other stakeholders are tirelessly conducting campaigns that will boost awareness and the uptake of family planning methods in society. Apart from the traditional channels of disseminating family planning information such as the use of television and radio, much attention has been directed into the use of digital tools. Following this, the study aimed at examining the role of digital tools in raising public awareness of family planning methods in Tanzania. The study employed a mixed research design that gave out room for collecting and analysing data quantitatively and qualitatively. The main targeted population was the residents who are of reproductive age and a total of 100 residents were contacted. The data collected were analysed descriptively through the use of frequencies and tables. This part mostly included quantitative data. On the other hand, content analysis was applied in analysing the qualitative data. The findings relating to the general objective revealed that digital tools had the potential of playing a great role in disseminating information concerning family planning methods and other related campaigns. The findings revealed that the respondents preferred the use of digital tools in obtaining family planning information compared to the predominantly traditional channels such as television and radio. The study recommended putting more emphasis on the use of digital tools in disseminating family planning information rather than the predominantly traditional channels. In addition, the study recommended more training to the youth and those who are on reproductive health by conducting various social campaigns tailored in promoting awareness of family planning agendas.


Introduction
Family planning (FP) plays an essential task for promoting the socio-economic development of any country.FP has been acknowledged as a useful instrument for controlling population increase and a means of enabling people in a given nation to plan their procreation and engage in more economic activity (Dansou, 2019).Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).FP links to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) whereby it brings transformational benefits to women, families, communities, and countries in general (Starbird et al. 2016) argued that FP can hasten progress across the 5 SDG themes of people, prosperity, planet, peace, and partnership.
Despite the various campaigns conducted concerning FP globally, the evidence shows that population growth, the numbers of births per woman, and maternal and infant mortality rates are higher in Sub -Saharan Africa (SSA) than elsewhere around the globe (Dansou, 2019).Tanzania is among the SSA countries with a high fertility rate of 5.2 births per woman which is above the African average of 4.7 births per woman (Bintabara et al, 2018).
The national family planning cost implementation program (NFPCIP), which aimed at increasing the prevalence of contraceptives from 28% in 2010 to 60% by 2015, is one for many initiatives that the Tanzanian government has taken through the Ministry of Health, Community Development, Gender, Elderly and Children (MoHCDGEC).However, the uptake of modern contraceptives remains low at 32% (Bintabara et al, 2018).This evidence supports that there is a low uptake of various FP methods in low and middle-income countries (LMICs) whereby the unmet need for FP ranges from 20% to 58% across 34 studies conducted in LMICs (Yousef et al, 2021).
The World Health Organization (WHO) in 2017 provided estimates that about 214 million women who are of reproductive age and who are living in LMICs are not using the modern contraceptive method in avoiding pregnancies.Several factors have attributed to the general trend of low uptake of FP methods in these countries including Tanzania; by which a number of factors hinder the provision of comprehensive sexual education, contraception, and abortion services to young women.These includes religious beliefs, public misconceptions about the use of contraception and a lack of community awareness about contraception (Feroz et al, 2021).Various studies including the one conducted by Babalola et al (2019) argued that the lack of access to information or services is one of the main factors that hinder the increased uptake of FP in LMICs.
There is still a wide knowledge practice gap on the FP methods in most of the developing countries, hence there is a need for emphasizing more on improvement in female education strategies and better access to services.On the other hand, more efforts should be dedicated to raising awareness among the public about the safety and convenience of modern FP methods (Quereishi et al, 2017).In addition, Quereishi et al (2017) argued that the intensification of the use of communication media suitable for the audience and an adequate message is important in the conduction of FP awareness activities.This necessitated the application of digital tools in enhancing the use of FP methods to the public, it is a fact that digital technologies can play a vital role in delivering the intended information to the public in more efficient ways (Castle, S 2019).
The usage of digital devices is increasing dramatically whereby about 3.6 billion people are estimated to own a Smartphone or have access to the internet occasionally (Oberlo, 2020).The use of digital technologies offers opportunities to address the challenges faced in the health system and provides the potential of improving both the coverage and the quality of FP services and practices (Yousef et al, 2021).Berry et al (2017) found that the use of digital tools especially the use of the internet and mobile phones has assisted in the self-management of mental health problems and other various related issues.In light of these arguments, this study examined the role of digital tools in raising awareness of FP methods in Tanzania by using the case of the residents of Charambe ward-Temeke Municipal.

Methodology Research Design, Study Area and Sampling
The study uses a mixed-research design to study both quantitative and qualitative approaches in collecting and analyzing data (Creswell, J. W).
The quantitative approach was used for examining the current practices of disseminating Family Planning methods and examining the viability of the use of digital tools in promoting awareness.The qualitative approach was used to collect data on examining the public discernment of Family Planning methods and identification of various digital tools that can be used for disseminating the Family Planning information.
The study was conducted in Dar es salaam region and probability sampling technique was applied for obtaining the representative from the population.Specificaly, the study used a simple random sampling approach for selecting the representatives that were included in the study.The strategy selects individuals or events to be included in the study and the every individual or event has an equal probability of inclusion in the sample (Taherdoost, 2016).The sample size selected was 100 of the residents from ward that the study was conducted.
In this study two different methods were used for data correction including questionnaires and interview methods.The questionnaires were distributed to the residents of reproductive age in the Temeke district.The questions included both closed questions, open-ended questions, and the use of the Likert scale.The interview method was used to address all the research questions and their sub-sections that required the respondents to respond openly in a qualitative approach.This method is more reliable in collection of the qualitative data.
To make sure that the validity and reliability of data is attainable, the use more than one data collection method namely the questionnaire and interview method were applied to supplement the information from all sets of tools.The use of the said methods provided the cushion of complimenting and addressing the shortfalls of each method and hence being able to find valid and reliable data.

Data Analysis
The quantitative data collected in addressing research questions that examine the current practices of disseminating FP methods in Tanzania and investigating the viability of the use of digital tools in promoting awareness of FP methods were analyzed descriptively and presented by the use of histograms, charts, tables, and frequencies.On the same note, a few questions that were under the main research question of examining the public perception of FP methods and the aim of proposing the digital tools that could be used in promoting public awareness of FP methods were also analyzed descriptively.On the other hand, the qualitative data collected in examining the public perception of the family planning methods in the community were analyzed using content analysis combined with other qualitative and open-ended questions in all other research questions

Results
In this study the results are presented based on analysis performed on the data collected following the objectives of the study and the findings are discussed on the ground of the theories used and with reference to other related empirical studies on the role of digital tools in raising public awareness of family planning methods.Looking at the profile of the respondents the relationship between the demographic characteristics and family planning practices were assessed.The analysis for the demographic information and their summaries are presented in Table 1.Also, the study has assessed the general awareness of family planning method and their benefits among the respondents in the sampled area.Table 2 presents the results summarizing the awareness of the respondents about the family planning methods and the benefits of family planning methods respectively.On the other hand, the study has also assed the awareness of the side effects of the family planning methods.The results show that almost fifty percent of the respondents are aware about these side effects.The study has investigated the awareness of the specific methods of family planning methods.The specific methods assessed include Barrier Methods for both Male and Female, Oral Contraceptive pills, Injectable, Implants, Intrauterine Device, Voluntary surgical sterilization and Natural Methods.The study has revealed that 65% of the respondents use at least one of family planning.The summary of these results are presented in Table 3.The study has also investigated on the dissemination and access to the information about the family planning methods.The source of information considered include television/radio, lecture and books, magazines/newspapers, friends/relatives, health personnel, and digital platforms.The source of information assessed in this study are presented in Table 4.The study has also generally assessed the perception about the use of family planning methods and the results show a mixed perception but 58% of the respondents have a positive altitude as presented in Table 5.

Discussion
In examining the current practices of disseminating information concerning family planning methods the findings had different ways of accessing this information.33% of the respondents accessed the information through health personnel, 21% through friends and relatives where as 20% accessed family planning information from television and radio and only 17% accessed the information through digital platforms.The findings are congruent with the study conducted by Babalola et al (2019) who claimed that most of the campaigns aimed at disseminating family planning information to the targeted audiences in Tanzania using traditional sources such as radio, television, and community events.Other studies provided evidence to support the predominantly use of traditional media in disseminating family planning information than digital channels (Aduah, 2021, Dangat and Njau, 2013, Kara et al, 2019).
On the perception of the use of family planning methods the findings indicate that less than 60% of all respondents had positive perceptions.This implies that more campaigns through various channels including digital channels are needed to make sure that the information concerning family planning methods is disseminated.The study conducted by Mushy et al (2020) and Bullington et al (2020) claimed that the misconceptions and fear of side effects acts as barriers to the uptake of family planning methods.Also, the study conducted by Mosha et al ( 2013) claimed that use of family planning methods brings complications whereas the study of Feroz et al, (2021) show that the use of family planning methods is against their religious and moral beliefs.

Conclusion
In examining the viability of the use of digital tools in promoting awareness of family planning, the findings from this study revealed that recently digital tools are very low applied in promoting awareness of family planning methods in the country.The findings revealed that a good proportional number of respondents preferred the use of digitals tools in obtaining information concerning family planning methods and of the same believe that the use of digital tools will influence the dissemination the information on family planning methods in Tanzania.Generally, the use of digital tools has great potential in promoting the use of family planning methods and in disseminating awareness on family planning.The finding in this study are supported by other findings by Ekwugha and Adum et al (2014) and Ibebuogu and Oforji (2021) as well as the study conducted by Babalola et al (2019).
Despite the large number of people in Tanzania who access the use of digital tools such as mobile phones and internet there are limited practices of disseminating FP methods through the use of digital tools Aduah (2021).In relation to the findings of this study, the implication is that the digital platforms are not as much utilized in disseminating family planning information.The findings revealed that the majority of respondents confirmed accessing the family planning information from the health personnel, friends and relatives.The study has revealed the potentiality of using digital platforms in disseminating family planning information.

FP
has become a core component of economic development planning and it is a crucial technique accomplishing both domestic and global development objectives such as the Suggested Citation Madundo, S. & Casmir, R. (2024).The Role of Digital Tools in Raising Public Awareness of Family Planning Methods in Tanzania.European Journal of Theoretical and Applied Sciences, 2(3), 609-615.DOI: 10.59324/ejtas.2024.2(3).46