Availability of emergency contraception does not result in failure of young women to initiate regular contraception, according to a UK study.
Dr Sam Rowlands (medical director, EPIC, London) and colleagues from the University of Surrey looked at a cohort of women, aged 14-29 years in 1993, identified from the General Practice Research Database. Patient records from 1994 until 1997 were searched for evidence of use of emergency and regular contraception. Of the 95,007 women in the cohort, 16 per cent had received a prescription for emergency contraception during the study period. Within this group, only 4 per cent received emergency contraception more than twice in any year. Use and re-use was more common in the 14-19 age group.
Of those women who had no record of previous regular contraception use, 70 per cent began ongoing contraception within a year of receiving a prescription for emergency contraception.
The researchers conclude that the study disproves claims that there could be widespread repeated use of emergency contraception and say that the results show that many women use regular contraception for the first time after use of emergency contraception.
Dr Rowlands told The Journal on July 25 that the study had been done as a result of some health professionals making arbitrary judgments about how many uses of emergency contraception a year were appropriate. He added that the results of the study were "reassuring" and showed that the use of emergency contraception was "not going out of control and being abused."
The study is published in the British Journal of Family Planning (2000;26:138).