Determinants Of Utilization Of Emergency Contraceptive Pills Among Female Students At Kenya Medical Training College, Thika, Kiambu County, Kenya

Abstract

Background Globally, there are about 210 million pregnancies each year. Approximately 80 million of these pregnancies are unintended, and one in every 10 of the pregnancies ends in an unsafe abortion. Despite increasing availability of emergency contraceptive pills both private and public health facilities and outlets, there is high rate of unintended pregnancies among adolescents and young women. Unintended pregnancy among students has high cost implication for students which include induced and unsafe abortion, reproductive health complications such fistula and attrition from college. Objectives. The main aim of the study is to determine factors (social demographic factors, knowledge, attitude and practice,) influencing utilization of emergency contraceptives among female students at Kenya Medical and Training College, Thika Campus. Methods This was a cross-sectional descriptive study whereby it used mixed method approach. Proportionate sampling method was used to obtain a total number of 220 female students. Three key informants were purposively sampled based on their position, experience and understanding of emergency contraceptive pills use. A self-administered questionnaire was used to collect quantitative data from students while a key informant interview guide was used to collect qualitative data from key informants data was analysed using SPSS 20.0, bivariate logistic 15 regression analysis were used to analyse quantitative data while qualitative data was analysed thematically , themes coded and analysed with SPSS.The dependent variable was utilization of emergency contraceptive pills and the independent variables were knowledge, attitudes and practices with regard to the use of emergency contraceptive pills. Results The study findings showed that there is relatively higher usage of ECP than depicted in other studies. However, the number can still be regarded as low as indicated by unintended pregnancies among youthful students who are sexually active. The study findings further showed that the level of knowledge of ECP, time of first sexual intercourse, history of being pregnant and whether or not one had utilized ECP before were the major predictors of ECP utilization among female students of KMTC. Additionally, results indicated that the level of knowledge about ECP among female students was still low and probably with a lot of misinformation. Attitude was not found to be a significant predictor of ECP utilization Conclusion: Socio-demographic and knowledge have significant relationship between on utilization of ECP among female students at Kenya Medical and Training College. Hence the social-demographic and knowledge about utilization of ECP should be well be monitored by key institutions for effective service delivery.