Attitude, Practice and Need Assessment of Emergency Contraception among Women of Reproductive Age Group in Delhi

Background: Unintended pregnancy is an important public health issue in developing countries like India because of its association with adverse social and health outcomes. Emergency Contraception (EC) is a safe and effective way to prevent unplanned pregnancy. The objectives of this study were to assess the attitude, practices and do the need assessment of emergency contraception among the married women of 18 to 45 years in an urban area of Delhi. Methods: It was a community based cross sectional study, done in an urban locality in Central Delhi. A pretested semi-structured questionnaire was used to take the interview of eligible females. Results: 83.2% of the study subjects had favourable attitude towards the use of emergency contraception in future, if need arises. There was siginificant association of attitude with age, parity and contraceptive usage. Only 9% of the study subjects had ever used EC. Most of them, purchased emergency contraception from a chemist. I pill was found to be the most common EC used by the study subjects. The practice of EC was found to be associated with education, contraceptive usage and having knowledge about EC. Conclusion: Government health facilities were the first choice of study subjects for receiving the information and getting emergency contraceptive pills. However the unavailability of the emergency contraceptive pills at health centres and long waiting time in government health facilities were found to be the reasons for not going to the government health facilities for getting the emergency contraceptive pills.