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Routine counseling about intrauterine contraception for women seeking emergency contraception
Published Web Location
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0010782414000547No data is associated with this publication.
Abstract
Objective
To compare contraceptive knowledge and use among women seeking emergency contraception (EC) before and after an inner-city clinic began providing structured counseling and offering same-day intrauterine device (IUD) or implant placement to all women seeking EC.Study design
For 8 months before and 21 months after this change in clinic policy, women aged 15-45 who wanted to avoid pregnancy for at least 6 months were asked to complete surveys immediately, 3 and 12 months after their clinic visit. In addition, we abstracted electronic medical record (EMR) data on all women who sought EC (n=328) during this period. We used chi-squared tests to assess pre/post differences in survey and EMR data.Results
Surveys were completed by 186 women. After the clinic began offering structured counseling, more women had accurate knowledge of the effectiveness of IUDs, immediately and 3 months after their clinic visit. In addition, more women initiated IUD or implant use (survey: 40% vs. 17% preintervention, p=0.04; EMR: 22% vs. 10% preintervention, p=0.01), and fewer had no contraceptive use (survey: 3% vs. 17% preintervention, p<0.01; EMR: 32% vs. 68%, p<0.01) in the 3 months after seeking EC. EMR data indicate that when same-day placement was offered, 11.0% of women received a same-day IUD. Of those who received a same-day IUD, 88% (23/26) reported IUD use at 3-months and 80% (12/15) at 12 months.Conclusions
Routine provision of structured counseling with the offer of same-day IUD placement increases knowledge and use of IUDs 3 months after women seek EC.Implications
Women seeking EC from family planning clinics should be offered counseling about highly effective reversible contraceptives with the option of same-day contraceptive placement.Many UC-authored scholarly publications are freely available on this site because of the UC's open access policies. Let us know how this access is important for you.