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Abstract
Background:Emergency contraception (EC) - the ‘best kept secret’ of reproductive health - is an oft-neglected subject. Even though a variety of forms and initiatives promoting ECs are available, ECs are highly under-utilized. For instance, 88% of women in Pakistan were unaware of ECs. There is a dearth of such studies in our country even though Pakistan has the lowest rate of contraception use in South-Asia.
Aims:
Our study aims to shed light on the awareness and factors governing the use of ECs among women presenting to the OPD of gynae department in public tertiary hospitals of Rawalpindi, Pakistan.
Methods:
A descriptive, cross-sectional study, using a validated questionnaire, was conducted in June 2025 on 107 women selected by convenience sampling. We used SPSS v27 for data analysis. Awareness and use of EC were measured and their association with different demographic variables was analyzed.
Results:
Out of the 107 participants, 33.6% of the participants had heard about EC while only 0.9% had ever used it. Most of the participants (72%) knew that EC use is not the same as abortion. Furthermore, 34.6% of women affirmed that they would use ECs if they had more information regarding them. Participants with below college education were 66% less likely to have heard about ECs than those with college education. A p value of <0.05 and 95% CI was adopted.
Conclusion:
This study concludes that the awareness and use of ECs are lacking among the target population because of various factors, including misconceptions.