Postcoital contraception in Turkey

The purpose of this article is to determine the knowledge status of women concerning postcoital contraception when they turn to curettage in order to terminate an undesired pregnancy.

This defining study has been carried out at a maternity hospital in Izmir on pregnant women admitted for curettage. We interviewed 150 pregnant cases using an improbability sampling method.

We discovered that 48.7% of women had avoided pregnancy before curettage by withdrawal before ejaculation. When we investigated the method used after uncontrolled coitus, 27.3% of cases reported vaginal douche while 12.7% indicated curettage. After having an unprotected coitus or failure in contraceptive methods 99.3% of the women indicated they would report to health institutes to utilize postcoital methods if they were familiar with them.

Postcoital contraception may be a solution for undesired pregnancies.