Knowledge, attitude and practice of emergency contraceptive among women who seek abortion care at Jimma University specialized hospital, southwest Ethiopia

Background: In Ethiopia maternal mortality rate is very high more than one in five women die from pregnancy or pregnancy related causes. The use of contraceptives to prevent unwanted pregnancies and unsafe abortion is an important strategy to minimize maternal mortality rate. Among various forms of contraception, emergency contraceptives are the only one that can be used after sexual intercourse offering chance to prevent unwanted pregnancy. The aim of this study was to assess the knowledge, attitude and practice of emergency contraceptive among women who seek abortion care at Jimma University specialized hospital (JUSH).Methods: Institution base cross-sectional study on knowledge, attitude and practice of emergency contraceptive was conducted at JUSH from April to June, 2011Data was collected using structured questionnaire and analyzed using SPSS version 17.0.Results: In this study 89 women were interviewed. More than half of them (48) were from urban area and 41 were from rural area.46 (51.7%) of them were single. Of all the respondents only nine women had awareness about emergency contraceptive. Seven of the women mentioned pills as emergency contraception and only two of them mentioned both pills and injectable as emergency contraception. All of them have positive attitude towards emergency contraception but none of them have ever used emergency contraceptives.Conclusion and recommendation: The finding revealed pregnancy among women of 15-19 years was very common. The knowledge and practice of emergency contraception is very low. But there is high positive attitude towards emergency contraceptives. Since there is much deficit on knowledge of women on emergency contraceptives, in addition to making them accessible; programs targeted at promotion and education of emergency contraceptives is helpful to prevent unwanted pregnancy. © 2012 Tesfaye et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd.