Knowledge of emergency contraception among women seeking abortion services at tertiary care hospital in Western Maharashtra (original) (raw)

2018, International Journal of Medical Science and Public Health

year worldwide, 85 million of 208 million pregnancies (41%) are unintended. [2] Reasons for unplanned pregnancies are either woman's failure to use a contraceptive method or failure to use a method correctly. [3] Today, about 53.4% of eligible couples are still unprotected against conception. [4] Ideally, a child should be born because it is wanted not because it cannot be prevented and this can be made possible by the constructive use of contraceptive methods. [5] According to the World Health Organization, it has been estimated that 210 million women get pregnant every year, and only, two-third of them deliver live infants. The rest one-third ends in stillbirth, miscarriage, and abortion. [6] The old idea of prevention of conception is replaced by control of conception. Unintended pregnancy poses a major challenge to mental, social, and reproductive health of young Background: A safe, effective, and handy method to prevent unplanned pregnancy is available in the form of emergency contraception (EC). By timely and judicious use of EC, 75-85% of the unplanned pregnancies and thereby unsafe abortions can be prevented. It can also play a very important role in reducing maternal and perinatal mortality and morbidity. Knowledge about EC is usually very limited and that too, misleading. Objective: The objective of this study is to assess the knowledge and factors affecting the knowledge of EC among the abortion seekers. Material and Methods: This was a cross-sectional, hospital-based study conducted among the women requesting an induced abortion at medical termination of pregnancy center in a tertiary care hospital over 2 months (May-June, 2016). Data were collected with the help of a preformed and pre-structured questionnaire which a total of 104 cases were enrolled in the study. The data were tabulated and analyzed using Epi Info and MS Excel. Results: Majority of the subjects 66.3% had knowledge of contraception, while 39.4% ever used one or the other method of contraception, most commonly used method was condom; 34 (32.7%) had knowledge of EC, of which 6 (5.8%) had good knowledge. Factors such as women belonging to urban area, education, socioeconomic status, and knowledge of contraception and ever used contraceptive were highly significantly associated with knowledge. Conclusions: This study showed that overall knowledge of EC was poor and that media or the health-care professionals are not providing adequate knowledge of this method. Thus, it is important to improve the knowledge of EC with the help of media, medical or paramedical workers, and NGOs working in the field of health.