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Jennings, Lucy (2009) Students’ Knowledge of Oral Contraception. [Dissertation (University of Nottingham only)] (Unpublished)

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Abstract

Aim:

To examine first year Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences students’ knowledge about oral contraception.

Method:

A questionnaire was distributed to 500 first year student members of the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences. Spearman rank order correlation, independent samples t-test, one-way between groups analysis of variance and mann-whitney U tests were performed using the results in order to compare groups within the sample population.

Results:

A total of 237 people participated in the study; the ages ranged from 17 to 49 years, the mean age was 21.

The findings showed that age; having children and a persons’ pregnancy concern, do not appear to be related to their knowledge of oral contraceptives. Whereas, gender; being sexually active and having used contraception before, improves a persons’ knowledge of oral contraceptives.

Despite the results showing some evidence of good contraceptive knowledge amongst those using regular oral contraceptives, there are still significant gaps in participants’ knowledge, which could potentially lead to inappropriate and inaccurate use of oral contraceptives.

Conclusion:

Those who have previously used oral contraceptives showed increased knowledge when compared to non-users, despite this, knowledge gaps were evident and therefore healthcare professional intervention would be beneficial in order to ensure that all oral contraceptive users have adequate knowledge to avoid unintended pregnancies. Emergency contraceptive knowledge was greater amongst participants than when compared to their knowledge of regular contraceptives, however, gaps in knowledge remain and require addressing in order to achieve timely and effective use of emergency contraception.

Recommendations:

The findings of this study can be used to focus education to those who require it most, oral contraceptive users.

Further studies are necessary to establish the knowledge of a broader sample population to identify wider education requirements.

Item Type:	Dissertation (University of Nottingham only)
Depositing User:	EP, Services
Date Deposited:	07 Sep 2009 08:21
Last Modified:	19 Jan 2018 12:48
URI:	https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/id/eprint/22816

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