Knowledge of students in higher education regarding contraception

[摘要] ENGLISH ABSTRACT: South Africa's Department of Health has stated that knowledge about contraception and reproduction isgenerally poor, mentioning the substantial uncertainty and misperceptions concerning contraception(Department of Health, 2003:10). Students in higher education institutions are presumed to have agenerally higher level of awareness of accessible methods regarding contraception and emergencycontraception, but the request rate for the termination of pregnancy among students in higher educationremains high (Roberts et al., 2004:441). The researcher identified a need for a study to assess students'knowledge of contraception and emergency contraception. The goal of this study was to explore thescope of undergraduate students' knowledge on the matter and to determine to what extent studentsmake use of contraception and emergency contraception. In this study a quantitative approach with anexplorative-descriptive research design was applied.The target population of this study included all the full-time undergraduate students at a particularuniversity in South Africa (N=15 872). A non probability, convenience sample was used to select asample size of 200 undergraduate students at the particular university. Reliability and validity wereassured by means of a pilot test conducted over a period of two weeks. The researcher personallycollected the data which was gathered by means of self-administered questionnaires. Ethical clearancefor this study was obtained from the University Health Research Ethics Committee. As universitystudents were involved this study, consent was also obtained from the university's Director ofInstitutional Research.The raw data was entered on a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet. A statistician from the University Centrefor Statistical Consultation was consulted regarding the analysis of the data by making use of Statisticaversion 9-software. Quantitative data was presented in histograms and tables, while qualitative datawas analysed by means of Tesch's approach. The overall conclusion was that students at a highereducation institution generally had a sound knowledge of contraception, but that their knowledge ofemergency contraception was poor. The overall recommendation was that students should be providedwith accurate, specific information regarding contraception and emergency contraception, and that thisinformation would need to be user friendly, easily accessible and widely available in order to decreasestudents' misperceptions about contraception.

[发布机构] Stellenbosch University