Knowledge, atitudes and practices of university students about long acting reversible contraceptives (LARC)

Abstract

Type of study: Transversal study with a descriptive approach. Objetive: To evaluate the knowledge, attitudes and practices of university students in relation to the long acting reversible contraceptives (LARC). Metodology: The population consists in female university students of the medical school at UFSCar in 2017. The instrument was a multi-choice structured questionnaire, self administered anonymously composed of 27 questions divided into socio-demographic chacaracteristics, contraceptive antecedents, knowledge, attitudes and praticce about LARC methods. The collected data were stored in the Microsoft Excel 2010 software. Results: 104 university students participated and, more than a half of them (60,19%) did not know the terminology LARC, but they knew: copper IUD (36,90%), levonorgestrel IUD (34,95%) and subdermic implant (21,35%). The LARC were considered highly effective by 84,61% participants, but the most part did not have knowledge about the protection period of copper DIU and subdermic implant. Among them, 57,69% shown interest in using this methods, being reliable efficacy (87,5%) the main encouragement. The high cost was the main discouragement (72,11%) and motive of difficult to health service acess (75,00%). Among the users of the LARC, 69,23% were very satisfied, the main reasons being the reliable efficacy and the prolonged protection. Conclusion: The knowledge about types of contraception is not an essential factor in the choice of a method, since the attitudes and practices that encourage or discourage them interfere in the choice, as well as in the acess of these methods.