Observational study on the use of emergency contraception in Spain: results of a national survey

The Consensus Statement on Emergency Contraception recommends the collection of data within each country in order to facilitate the use of emergency contraception; this has led us to design a prospective observational study with a view to identifying the reality in Spain regarding emergency contraception. We have conducted a national observational study including 4390 cases of requests for the prescription of emergency contraception in the entire Spanish territory, collected by means of a questionnaire completed by the person prescribing the emergency contraception between April and December 2002. The mean age of the women requesting emergency contraception was 23 years, with 35.1% of these being adolescents and 71% of them under the age of 24 years. Of the applicants, 40% reported that they were students and 31.8% were working. The educational level of studies was medium or higher. Emergency contraception had previously been used by 19.8% of the women and, of these, 75% used it on a single occasion. The main reason put forward for requesting emergency contraception was condom breakage (68.7%), followed by the failure to use any contraceptive measures whatsoever (15.4%). The Spanish women requesting emergency contraception are young students and resort to this method on one occasion.