By Suzanne Rostler
NEW YORK, Jul 10 (Reuters Health) - Women who have emergency contraception
on hand may be less likely to use the most effective birth control methods,
results of a study suggest.
The report in the July issue of Obstetrics and Gynecology indicates that
women who received emergency contraception before they had sex were more likely
than other women to use condoms, spermicides, a diaphragm and withdrawal methods
instead of hormonal contraceptives such as the birth control pill.
Women who received the emergency pill in advance were also nearly three
times more likely to use it, researchers report.
"Providers need to give clients advance provisions of emergency
contraception because women who experience acts of unprotected intercourse are
more likely to use it if they have it at home," Dr. Tina Raine, the study's lead
author, told Reuters Health.
Emergency contraceptive pills can reduce the chances of becoming pregnant if
taken within 72 hours of unprotected sex, studies have shown. But while about
66% of women between 18 and 44 years of age have heard of emergency
contraception, only 1% to 2% have ever used it.
To see if providing women with emergency contraception in advance of need
would increase its use or influence a woman's choice of birth control,
investigators with the University of California, San Francisco assigned 263
women aged 16 to 24 to receive the emergency contraception pills along with
education about their use, or education alone. All women were attending a
publicly funded family planning clinic.
Four months later, emergency contraception was used by 20% of women who were
given the pills in advance, compared with 7% of women who knew about emergency
contraception but did not have it on hand.
Twenty-eight percent of women who received the pills said they used a less
effective birth control method, compared with 17% of women who received only
information about the pill.
"It is possible that women in the treatment group relied on the advance
provision of emergency contraception," Raine and colleagues write.
However, the authors add that more studies are needed to assess whether
changing to a less effective contraceptive method increases the use of emergency
contraception.
"Future research is needed to look at the effect of advance provisions of
emergency contraception on unintended pregnancy rates over time and outcomes
such as rates of STDs in women given advance provisions of emergency
contraception," Raine said.
