Sociodemographic background of oral contraceptive use among young women
Z. Kozinszky, J. Sikovanyecz, Z. Pál, H. Lehotzky, L. Kovács, A. Pál
Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, University of Szeged, Szeged,
Hungary
Introduction: Oral contraceptive (OC) use should be promoted in regular
sexual activity to decrease the high abortion-rate in this age-group.
Aims and Methods: To assess the main determinants of OC use among young women.
A self-completed questionnaire study of 332 clients (14–25 yrs) from 1 March
2001 to 31 May 2002 at the Contraception Outpatient Clinic for young women in
the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, University of Szeged.
Results: About half of the respondents (48.2%) used OCs, which was
significantly depending from the prevalence of sexual contacts (P<0.001). Most of the adolescents want to use OCs in the future (74.0%). Thirty-four percent of the OC users knew the correct management of the patient failure of the OC pill, whereas among the non-OC users this rate was only 22% (P <0.05). The contraceptive choice of the young women depended significantly on the available knowledge of all reliable methods (68.8% vs. 57.0%, P<0.05).
Conclusions: OC is preferred by more educated teenagers with regular sexual
activity. Our results highlighted the significant differences in information
processes, awareness of contraceptives and knowledge of correct use of OCs
between OC-user and non-OC-user youngsters.
