Knowledge, Attitude and Practice of Women about Emergency Contraception in Health Centers of Shahrekord (2006)

Background & Objectives: Regarding the importance of family planning in emergency conditions, such as condom interruption and its role in prevention of unwanted pregnancy, recognition of Knowledge, Attitude and Practice of different social groups in each region about emergency contraception is necessary. The purpose of this study was to determine the Knowledge, Attitude and Practice of women referred to health centers of Shahrekord.

Materials & Methods: In this descriptive and analytical study, we used a customized questionnaire for data collection, including two parts “individual information" and "specialized questions".  Sampling was carried out as sectional, based on the people covered by the health care centers. 400 women who referred to health care centers using condoms, coitus interruptus and rhytmic methods for contraception, were selected. For analysis of data, we used SPSS software, t test, pearson correlation test, and P<0.05 was considered significant.

Results: The Mean age was 30.12±6.24 years . The majority of women were educated and the mean marriage age was 21.37± 3.89 years. The Mean of knowledge score about emergency contraception was 3.95±2.68 out of 8. In these conditions 22.5 % of women had inadequate knowledge, 55.5 % had moderate and 22 % had adequate knowledge. The attitude of women about emergency contraception was positive and their practice was inadequate. There was a significant correlation between age and job and the score of their knowledge (P<0.001).  A significant correlation was considered between the level of education and the score of their knowledge (P<0.01). The women with adequate knowledge, had better practice than those who had not the adequate knowledge (P<0.001).

Conclusions: With regard to the inadequacy of the knowledge and the practice of the women and their positive attitudes towards emergency contraception, we suggest the health care providers to educate the women about contraception, especially emergency contraception to increase the knowledge and the improvement of practice