The pharmacy students' knowledge, practice and attitude towards contraception

Aim: To determine pharmacy students' knowledge, attitudes, and practice regarding contraception. Tasks of the study: 1. To evaluate pharmacy students‘ knowledge about contraception. 2. To review pharmacy students‘ attitude towards contraception. 3. To analyze pharmacy students‘ experience with contraception, its‘ obstacles and enablers. Methodology: Participants of the study - 199 1st-4th course LUHS pharmacy students. The instrument used for the research is structural questionnaire. The data was analyzed by SPSS 20.0 software. Results: respondents are mostly aware about barrier contraception but has poor knowledge about emergency contraception. Higher course students had better knowledge about emergency contraception. Students that started active sexual life earlier were more likely to support early sexual education. The safest method of contraception is birth control pills. The most popular contraceptive is a male condom. More women than men chose internet as their main source of information about contraception. Conclusions: 1. Pharmacy students’ knowledge about contraception is diverse. They had more answers about barrier contraception that were correct but had more confusion emergency contraception. Higher course students had better knowledge about emergency contraception (p<0,05). 2. Attitude analysis showed that most students positively rank the statement about early sexual education, negatively rank that only woman is responsible for contraception and they didn‘t have any opinion on statement that hormonal and emergency contraception does more damage than good. Students that had started active sexual life earlier were more likely to support the statement about early sexual education (p<0,001). 3. While analyzing pharmacy students‘ experience with contraception it was found that they obtained the most information from the internet, the most popular type of contraception is a male condom, main enabler was personal knowledge and need, while the main obstacle was lack of information. More women than men chose internet as their main source of information about contraception (p