Knowledge concerning and attitudes towards emergency contraceptive pills
among Hungarian women waiting for induced abortion
B. Horváth (1,2), A. Turay (1,2), Sz. Kató (2)
Markusovszky Teaching Hospital, Szombathely, Hungary (1); University of
Pécs, Faculty of Health Sciences, Hungary (2)
Introduction: Unwanted pregnancy is common in Hungary, every third
pregnancy ends up in induced abortion.
Aims and Methods: To investigate knowledge about and attitudes towards
emergency contraceptive pills among women waiting for induced abortion. Survey
by self-administered anonymous questionnaires in the waiting room.
Results: The response rate was 86.4% (216/250). The mean age of the
participants was 27.5 years. 60.6% (131/216) answered that they had a permanent
partner. As many as 100 of 216 (46.3%) had a history of one or more previous
abortions. The corresponding figure among teenagers (518 years) was 26.9%
(n=58). 25% (54) of all did not use any form of contraception at the time of
intercourse lresulting in conception. All other women stated that they had used
various contraceptive methods. Women who were regular smokers had more provious
abortions (P=0.01) and a shorter education (P=0.001). The concept of the fertile
window was known by 51.9% (n=112). Only 35.2% (n=76) could not define the
fertile window. The facilitty of emergency postcoital contraception was known by
51.9% (n=112) of all women. More teenagers than women over the age of 18 had
heard of postcoital hormonal treatment. 58% of the participants were considering
preventing fertilisation by a pill while only 19.6% (22/112) had concise
knowledge about the ttime window of effectiveness. The duration of the
recommended time window was underestimated by 71.4, overestimated by 8.9% of
participants giving an answer at all; 48.1% of all participants (n=104) answered
‘I don’t know’. A higher proportion of women above 30 years declared that
they would have used postcoital contraception if they had known more about the
method than of younger persons (especially under 18 years of age) . More than
half of the women (52.8%) thought after completion of the questionnaire that
they would use emergency contraception in future. The commonest source of
information concerning postcoital contraception was friends (32.1%, n=36/112)
and the media (34.8%, n=39/112). Only 7.1% of responders assigned a positive
role in this issue to health care providers.
Conclusions: Unwanted pregnancy and induced abortion are common in
Hungary. Most responding women stated that they became pregnant incidentally,
without using effective contraception. Emergency contraception is generally
known but hardly used. The fundamental problem is that women do not have the
exact knowledge about the accessibility and appropriate application of these
preparations. Health care providers prescribe the medication only if requested.
New information strategies are needed. They should encourage women to keep
emergency pills in the bathroom cabinet or in their hand-bag like other
medicaments.
