The Prevalence and Knowledge of Emergency Contraceptive Pills (ECP’s) among women in Kibera, Nairobi

Abstract

Background: Emergency contraception (EC) refers to the use of certain contraceptive methods by women and girls to prevent pregnancy after unprotected sexual intercourse. Many women who have a need for emergency contraception do not use it. Usually, women simply do not know that it exists or, if they know, they do not know where to get it or how or when to use it.Young and unmarried women constitute a high risk group for unsafe abortions. It has been estimated that widespread use of emergency contraception may significantly reduce the number of abortion-related morbidity and mortality. The Consortium for Emergency has set a goal of making emergency contraceptive pills a standard part of reproductive health care worldwide.

Objectives: The main objective of this study was to evaluate the prevalence, knowledge, attitudes and practises towards the uptake of emergency contraceptive pills by women in Kibera slum,Nairobi, Kenya

Design: A Cross-sectional survey was conducted in Kibera, Nairobi

Method: Multi stage sampling was used to determine the study population and 384 women were interviewed using a structured questionnaire. SPSS version 16 and STATA version 11 were used for statistical analyses.

Results: The results were that the mean age of the women was 26 years with a standard deviation of 7.4. Majority of the women were married (52%). More than half (58%) reported to use a method of contraception. The prevalence of emergency contraceptive pill was found to be (23%).The findings of this study show that knowledge of emergency contraceptive pills was high (74%) meaning many women have heard about it. The main source of information of Emergency Contraceptive Pills (ECPs) was from friends and family (34%). However when it came to its usage, (37%) of the women thought that it would cause health problems if they used it, while (25%) were not familiar with the emergency contraceptive pill itself, hence were afraid of using it. The main reason for the women not using emergency contraceptives was because of misinformation (62%) followed by a lack of awareness (38%).

Conclusion: This study found the prevalence of ECP to be 23% and that knowledge on ECP was adequate with more than half the women reporting to have heard of ECP. However awareness does not lead to use of ECP’s and the method is underused. The major constraint to ECP use was misinformation, with many women fearing that ECP might cause health problems or interfere with their fertility. Religion was also a constraint to ECP with only Protestants reporting its use.