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[Emergency contraception: evaluation of women's understanding of it, a requisite for the effectiveness of the treatment].

OBJECTIVE
To evaluate how much women who attend primary care consultations understand about the correct use of emergency ("morning after") contraception (EC), their information requirements and their views about free EC prescription.


DESIGN
Cross-sectional study, using a questionnaire.


SETTING
Les Corts Primary Care Centre, Barcelona, Spain.


PARTICIPANTS
A total of 130 women aged 15 to 45 years old who attended primary care consultations in May and June, 2005, were included. One-hundred and twenty-four of them (95.4%) agreed to the questionnaire.


MAIN MEASUREMENTS
We tested knowledge of EC, and we drew up a questionnaire to evaluate understanding. This had 4 multiple-choice questions, as well as socio-demographic data, contraception background, how they preferred to obtain EC, and their information requirements.


RESULTS
We found a lack of knowledge about several aspects of EC use: in particular, 33% of the women thought that EC eliminated completely the risk of pregnancy. We only found differences for better knowledge of EC in women who had used it before (3.03; 95% CI, 2.29-3.77) versus those who had never used it (2.47; 95% CI, 1.54-3.4; P=.028. Free prescription of EC in health centres was approved of by 75.8%, while 83.1% said they needed more information. Their preferred method to obtain this information was by leaflet.


CONCLUSIONS
Women who attend primary health care clinics have a need for information on EC. Their lack of knowledge could limit the effectiveness of treatment. A brief explanation and handing out a leaflet could solve this problem.