Clinical Investigation

Knowledge and Practices of Medical And Traditional Emergency Contraception among Married Women in Odemis

10.5505/tjod.2013.44711

  • Zeynep Daşıkan
  • Nurcan Taşçı
  • Tuba Karaca

Turk J Obstet Gynecol 2013;10(2):90-96

Objectives: The present study was designed to determine medical and traditional knowledge and practices of emergency contraception among married women after unprotected sexual intercourse. Materials and Methods: The present study was carried out as a descriptive study on 367 married women registered to Primary Health Center number one in Odemis County of Izmir City between the dates 12.05.2005 and 20.06.2005. The data were collected through a questionnaire consisting of characteristic desciriptive, reproductive data and knowledge and use of medical and traditional emergency contraception. For collecting data, face-to-face interview technique was used. Data were evaluated by as number, percentage and chi-square tests on the SPSS version 12.0. Results: It was found that 25.1% of the women knew medical methods of emergency contraception and 1.4% of them (n = 5) used morning after pills. It was also found that 50.1% of the women knew at least one traditional practice for contraception and 19.3% of them used traditional practice at least for one time, and the most frequently used traditional practice was vaginal douche with rate of 75.7%.  Conclusions: It was concluded that rate of having knowledge on and using medical emergency contraceptive methods was lower for contraception from unintended pregnancies whereas rate of having knowledge on and using traditional contraceptive practice was higher among married women in Odemis. The women should be informed on emergency contraceptive methods and they should be given counselling.

Keywords: Emergency contraception, traditional practices, vaginal douche, unintended pregnancy.