A Five Year Review of the Complications of Progestogen only Injectable Contraceptive at the University of Port-Harcourt Teaching Hospital

Abstract

The injectable progestogen only contraceptive is a widely accepted method of contraception in our environment and very little has been reported on its complications in our environment. The aim of the study was to highlight the complications associated with use of Injectable Medroxyprogesterone Acetate and Norethisterone Enanthate in clients at the University of Port- Harcourt Teaching Hospital, Port-Harcourt, South- South Nigeria It was a 5 year retrospective study of the clients who accepted and used progestogen only injectable contraceptives (depot medroxyprogesterone acetate and noerthistherone enantate) at the family planning units of the University of Port Harcourt Teaching Hospital between 1st January 2000 and 31st December 2004. The case files of these clients were retrieved their data extracted. The information included the clients sociodemographic characteristics, the types doses of of injectable contraceptives received and the side effects reported at the follow up visits. The data was coded and entered into a data bank and analysed using SPSS for windows11.0 version. Seven hundred and seventy seven (777) injectable contraceptive acceptors out of the 1720 contraceptive acceptors during the study period. This accounted for 45.17% of the new acceptors over the 5 years period, making the injectable contraceptives the most commonly used method of birth control in UPTH. Five hundred and five (505) clients took depot medroxyprogesterone acetate (DMPA) while 272 used norethesterone enanthate (NE-ET). The mean age of the injectable contraceptive users was 31.31±5.5 years and the mean parity was 5.5±2.5 deliveries. The users reported multiple side effects with 579 episodes. Secondary amenorrhea was the commonest side effect occurring in 350 (45.34%) clients. Others were hypertension in 17 (2.94%) and metabolic disturbances in 14 (2.41%). Conclusion: Injectable progestogen only contraceptive is associated with multiple side effects, with secondary amenorrhoea being the most common. The contraceptive failure rate of thismethod in ourwomenis low.

Keywords: progestogen injectable contraceptive, medroxyprogesterone acetate, norethisterone enanthate, complicat ions, secondary amenorrhoea.