This study was designed to determine the effect of the integration of fatwa on the couple education in family planning among Muslim couples who do not practice family planning among selected barangays in Zamboanga City. The objective of this study was to increase the knowledge and reported practices on family planning through integration of fatwa in the couple education on family planning. A total of 158 couples in their reproductive age were included in this study. An interviewer-assisted questionnaire was used to determine the knowledge and reported practice of the respondents before and after the intervention. Two interventions were used in this study, the use of fatwa plus family planning in couple education and family planning through couple education alone. Following statistical analysis, the means of knowledge scores pre and post intervention of specific groups showed a significant increase in the knowledge from 11.36 to 13.09 with p value of 0.000 for fatwa plus couple education on family planning group and 11.18 to 13.08 with p value of 0.000 for couple education on family planning alone group. Using independent sample t-test, data showed that knowledge of two groups pre and post intervention were comparable with p value of 0.552 pre-intervention and 0.962 post intervention. Frequencies and percentages were used to compare the practice pre and post intervention for both groups. There were 22.50% (18 out of the 80 couples) among respondents under the couple education in family planning group compared to the 21.79% (17 out of the 78 couples) who utilized family planning method post intervention. Therefore, the researcher concludes that integration fatwa in the couple education on family planning is comparable to couple education in family planning alone in increasing the knowledge and reported practice of family planning among Muslim couples.

Keyword: Integration of FATWA Reproductive health and family planning Couple education Muslim couples