Emergency oral contraceptive use among undergraduate female Mizan campus students of Mizan-Tepi university, south nations nationalities and peoples regional state south west, Ethiopia, 2016

Background: Unintended pregnancies are major public health concern in developing countries including Ethiopia. Female university students face unintended pregnancies because most of them are sexually active and exposed to unprotected sporadic premarital sexual intercourse. Emergency contraception is a drug or a device that prevents unintended pregnancy and its consequences. Emergency oral contraceptives are being increasingly used by unmarried young women to prevent unintended pregnancies following unprotected sexual intercourse. However, little is known about Emergency Oral Contraception (EOC) use among female students at higher education in Ethiopia.

Objective: The main objective of this study was to assess the prevalence of Emergency Oral Contraceptive (EOC) use among Mizan-Tepi University, Mizan campus undergraduate regular female student 2016.

Methods: Institution based cross-sectional study was conducted on 324 undergraduate female students of Mizan-Tepi University, Mizan campus. Data were collected from March 1-21, 2017. Study participants were selected using stratified sampling technique. Self-administered pretested structured and semi-structured questionnaire was used to collect the data. Descriptive analysis was applied to describe the Emergency oral contraceptive use.

Results: Regarding utilization of Emergency oral Contraceptives, among those who reported to have sexual intercourse, 78 (82.97%) reported use of Emergency oral Contraceptives and it was 76 (95%) among those who had unprotected sex.

Conclusion and recommendation: There is very high level of Emergency oral Contraceptives use among sexually active female undergraduate students who had unprotected sexual intercourse.

Given that Emergency oral Contraceptives use among female students is very high among those who reported sexual intercourse we recommend that zonal health department, town heath office, Mizan-Tepi University health Science College and Mizan-Tepi University HIV coordination should give reproductive health education, risk of unprotected sex.