[Male doctors receive fewer requests for emergency contraception than their women colleagues do]

Systematic Review of the profile of emergency contraception users

Objective:

to discern the profile of the Spanish Emergency Contraceptive users (EC). Design: systematic review of contraceptive use in the Spanish population. Data Source: Spanish and international databases, between January 2006 - March 2011.

Keywords:

Contraceptives, Postcoital pills, emergency contraception, levonorgestrel, data collection. Study selection: original papers, letters to the editor in which stated aims were the description, prediction or measurement of variables related to EC use. Twenty-two papers were retrieved and fourteen were finally selected, all of which were descriptive. Data extraction: manuscripts were evaluated by two independent reviewers.

Results:

Women requesting EC have ages between 21-24 years, mostly single and university students; declare that they have not previously used EC, and attend an Emergency department, at weekends and within 48 hours following unprotected sexual intercourse. The reason is condom rupture. None of the studies reviewed measured alcohol and other drug consumption, the number of sexual partners, nor any of the studies performed a comparison with a group not using EC.

Conclusions:

lack of homogeneity and comprehensiveness of studied variables resulted in a limited profile of Spanish EC users. Further studies are needed with a more comprehensive approach if sexual health interventions are to be carried out in possible users.

[Emergency contraception: evaluation of women's understanding of it, a requisite for the effectiveness of the treatment]

OBJECTIVE

To evaluate how much women who attend primary care consultations understand about the correct use of emergency ("morning after") contraception (EC), their information requirements and their views about free EC prescription.

DESIGN

Cross-sectional study, using a questionnaire.

SETTING

Les Corts Primary Care Centre, Barcelona, Spain.

PARTICIPANTS

A total of 130 women aged 15 to 45 years old who attended primary care consultations in May and June, 2005, were included. One-hundred and twenty-four of them (95.4%) agreed to the questionnaire.

MAIN MEASUREMENTS

We tested knowledge of EC, and we drew up a questionnaire to evaluate understanding. This had 4 multiple-choice questions, as well as socio-demographic data, contraception background, how they preferred to obtain EC, and their information requirements.

RESULTS

We found a lack of knowledge about several aspects of EC use: in particular, 33% of the women thought that EC eliminated completely the risk of pregnancy. We only found differences for better knowledge of EC in women who had used it before (3.03; 95% CI, 2.29-3.77) versus those who had never used it (2.47; 95% CI, 1.54-3.4; P=.028. Free prescription of EC in health centres was approved of by 75.8%, while 83.1% said they needed more information. Their preferred method to obtain this information was by leaflet.

CONCLUSIONS

Women who attend primary health care clinics have a need for information on EC. Their lack of knowledge could limit the effectiveness of treatment. A brief explanation and handing out a leaflet could solve this problem.