Little knowledge and limited practice: emergency contraceptive pills, the public, and the obstetrician-gynecologist.

OBJECTIVE

To assess Americans' knowledge and attitudes about emergency contraceptive pills and the knowledge, attitudes, and practices of obstetrician-gynecologists with respect to emergency contraceptive pills.

METHODS

A random sample of a national cross-section of 2002 Americans, age 18 and older, including 1000 women and 1002 men, was surveyed by telephone between October 12 and November 13, 1994. A nationally representative sample of 307 obstetrician-gynecologists, whose names were drawn from the American Medical Association Physicians' Masterfile, was surveyed by telephone between February 1 and March 21, 1995. Both Surveys addressed knowledge and attitudes about unplanned pregnancy and contraception options, including emergency contraception. Despite response rates of 50 and 77%, respectively, both unweighted samples closely mirror the populations from which they were drawn.

RESULTS

Americans are not well informed about emergency contraceptive pills. Only 36% of respondents indicated that they knew "anything could be done" within a few days after unprotected sex to prevent pregnancy. Fifty-five percent said they had "heard of" emergency contraceptive pills, and only 1% had ever used them. Ninety-nine percent of obstetrician-gynecologists reported being "familiar" with emergency contraceptive pills. Twenty-two percent were "somewhat familiar." Among those who said they were "very familiar" with the method (77%), the majority considered emergency contraceptive pills to be "very safe" (88%) and "very effective" (85%). Overall, 70% of obstetrician-gynecologists surveyed said they had prescribed emergency contraceptive pills within the last year, but on an infrequent basis; 77% of those who prescribed emergency contraceptive pills did so five or fewer times.

CONCLUSION

Public knowledge about the availability and use of emergency contraceptive pills is limited, as is the practice of prescribing the pills among obstetrician-gynecologists. Because patients rely on health care providers for information on birth control, health care providers can improve knowledge about the availability of emergency contraceptive pills among their patients.