Knowledge, Attitude and Practice of Emergency Contraception and Associated Factors Among Women Seeking Abortion Care at Saint Paul’s Hospital, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, 2020: a cross-sectional study

Abstract

<p><strong>Background</strong>: Unplanned &amp; unwanted pregnancies that ends in abortion still continues to endanger lives of many women. Emergency contraception is a back-up method for unprotected sexual intercourse to prevent unintended pregnancy. Yet, many studies showed that emergency contraception utilization is limited &amp; induced abortion rate is high. The study has aimed at assessing the knowledge, attitude and practice of emergency contraception and associated factors among women seeking abortion care at Saint Paul’s Hospital, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia from February, 2020 to June, 2020.</p> <p><strong>Methods</strong>: Hospital based cross-sectional study was conducted among 207 women selected by systemic random sampling technique. Data was collected using structured questionnaire and analysis was done using SPSS version 21.0. Binary logistic regression was carried out to see the presence of significant association between variables at p-value &lt; 0.05 and adjusted odds ratio with a 95% confidence interval was used to present associated factors.</p> <p><strong>Result</strong>: Among 207 participants 146 (71.5%), had heard about emergency contraception and among them 96 (46.4%) were ever-users. Less than half, 84 (40.6%), of respondents had appropriate knowledge; whereas, 106 (51.2%) had positive attitude of emergency contraception use. Factors found to be significantly associated with practice of emergency contraception were religion [AOR = 0.093 (0.019, 0.457); p = 0.003]; marital status [AOR = 0.256 (0.072, 0.914); p = 0.036]; educational level [AOR = 0.252 (0.100, 0.635); p = 0.003]; and knowledge on emergency contraception [AOR = 0.358 (0.172, 0.744); p = 0.006].</p> <strong>Conclusion and Recommendation</strong>: The study found that, most women had heard about Emergency Contraception and more than half of them did so from friends. However, there was a substantial lacking of appropriate knowledge of the method and its practice even among those who had heard of it. Delivering basic information on emergency contraception needs to be part of routine reproductive health counselling and given to their role to play in women’s knowledge and perception of emergency contraception, health care providers and media should provide appropriate information and do promotion to improve the uptake.