Fouzia Perveen, Mahjabeen Khan, Rakhshinda Akhter, Saima Saleem.
Knowledge and Attitude towards Emergency Contraceptives among Nursing and Midwifery Students in Tertiary Care Hospitals, Karachi.
Ann Abbasi Shaheed Hosp Karachi Med Dent Coll Jan ;22(4):276-83.

Objective: To assess the knowledge and attitude about the emergency contraceptives among nursing and midwifery students in tertiary care hospitals in Karachi. Methods: This cross-sectional study was carried out in the nursing school of Dow University Hospital and & Civil Hospital Karachi. Duration of the study was January 2017 to June 2017. All nursing and midwifery students, after verbal consent, were interviewed face-to-face using a pretested structured questionnaire. The questionnaire was developed to assess knowledge and attitudes; the way in which the respondents think and behave towards emergency contraceptives (EC). Some questions were objective in nature with 'Yes' or 'No' options, whereas few questions were of multiple choice. The variables were age, educational level, religion, marital status, source of information, EC types and method of use, side effects and source of availability and the attitudes of participants towards the use of EC (11 items). The data was recorded in MS Excel (2010 version). Data analysis was done by SPSS 16. Mean and SD of age was calculated while the categorical variables were analysed by using frequency and percentages. Chi-square test was applied and significance of test was decided at pvalue 0.05. Results: There were 149 respondents out of the 165 targeted population. The response rate was 90.30% among nurses and midwives working in public sector of health care system in Karachi, Pakistan. The mean age of the respondents was 20.63 ± 1.69 years. Most respondents were between the ages of 20-35 years; 98 (65.8%), with majority having educational level of matriculation; 66 (44.3%). There were nurses and midwives with optimum knowledge for EC based on the scale of having three or more correct responses out of four items. The best positive attitude was scaled by correct response of seven or more items out of eleven. The association of demographic factors with attitude towards EC was only significant at p-value 0.05 among married students. Conclusion: Awareness regarding EC with optimum knowledge and positive attitude was found in about two-thirds of nurses and midwives. Information must be spread through media and training to remove barriers and misconceptions among nurses and midwives. Keywords: Knowledge, attitude, emergency contraceptives, nursing students, tertiary care centre.

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