LITTLE KNOWLEDGE AND LIMITED PRACTICE - EMERGENCY CONTRACEPTIVE PILLS, THE PUBLIC, AND THE OBSTETRICIAN-GYNECOLOGIST

Objective: To assess Americans' knowledge and attitudes about emergenc y contraceptive pills and the knowledge, attitudes, and practices of o bstetrician-gynecologists with respect to emergency contraceptive pill s. Methods: A random sample of a national cross-section of 2002 Americ ans, age 18 and older, including 1000 women and 1002 men, was surveyed by telephone between October 12 and November 13, 1994. A nationally r epresentative sample of 307 obstetrician-gynecologists, whose names we re drawn from the American Medical Association Physicians' Masterfile, was surveyed by telephone between February 1 and March 21, 1995. Both surveys addressed knowledge and attitudes about unplanned pregnancy a nd contraception options, including emergency contraception. Despite r esponse rates of 50 and 77%, respectively, both unweighted samples clo sely mirror the populations from which they were drawn. Results: Ameri cans are not well informed about emergency contraceptive pills. Only 3 6% of respondents indicated that they knew ''anything could be done'' within a few days after unprotected sex to prevent pregnancy. Fifty-fi ve percent said they had ''heard of'' emergency contraceptive pills, a nd only 1% had ever used them. Ninety-nine percent of obstetrician-gyn ecologists reported being ''familiar'' with emergency contraceptive pi lls. Twenty-two percent were ''somewhat familiar.'' Among those who sa id they were ''very familiar'' with the method (77%), the majority con sidered emergency contraceptive pills to be ''very safe'' (88%) and '' very effective'' (85%). Overall, 70% of obstetrician-gynecologists sur veyed said they had prescribed emergency contraceptive pills within th e last year, but on an infrequent basis; 77% of those who prescribed e mergency contraceptive pills did so five or fewer times. Conclusion: P ublic knowledge about the availability and use of emergency contracept ive pills is limited, as is the practice of prescribing the pills amon g obstetrician-gynecologists. Because patients rely on health care pro viders for information on birth control, health care providers can imp rove knowledge about and availability of emergency contraceptive pills among their patients. (C) 1997 by The American College of Obstetricia ns and Gynecologists.