Knowledge and attitudes towards emergency contraception of health-care providers in a region with a high birth rate

OBJECTIVE: To assess the knowledge of, attitude towards and practices of emergency contraception among health-care providers at a university hospital located in a region with a high birth rate. METHODS: The survey was conducted among 214 health-care providers working at a university hospital located in eastern Turkey. RESULTS: Two hundred participants completed the questionnaire. Of the respondents, 26.0% said that they did not know anything about emergency contraception, while the remaining 74.0% said that they knew about at least one of the methods of emergency contraception. But among these, the knowledge of 38.5% of the participants about emergency contraception was accurate and that of 61.5% was inaccurate. Thirty-four percent of the respondents stated that they had previously required personally to use emergency contraceptive methods. The most commonly used emergency contraceptive methods were oral contraceptives (69.1%) and intrauterine device (14.7%). None of the respondents knew anything about mifepristone and levonorgestrel. CONCLUSION: There is a knowledge deficit among health-care providers who play a significant role in the dissemination of the information about emergency contraception.