Timely use of emergency contraception after all contraceptive failures could prevent up to 50% of all unintended pregnancies. In 2002, 85% of adolescents pregnancies were unintended, resulting in almost 500,000 births and 235,000 abortions. Emergency contraceptive services may be especially useful to adolescents because of their erratic patterns of sexual behavior and contraceptive use. Providing these services during emergency department hospital visits is vitally important in helping adolescents to prevent unwanted pregnancies. This IRB-approved study aimed to expand upon current data in the literature by assessing the type and amount of emergency contraceptive services provided to adolescents in these hospital settings nationwide. Research included in this thesis represents a pilot study of thirty-two physicians who work in twenty-one childrens hospital emergency departments across the United States. Telephone surveys were conducted with these physicians to assess the types of EC services available in their emergency departments and their attitudes regarding these services. Recommendations for undertaking a full-scale study of this same target population include improving response rates by modifying the survey administration protocol and increasing the number of contacts made with each physician.
Results indicate that childrens hospital emergency department physicians are not meeting the current standard of care for emergency contraceptive counseling and prescribing practices with adolescents. These results support the need for increased education and awareness for emergency department physicians in childrens hospitals regarding emergency contraception and strategies to optimally communicate this information to their adolescent patients. The relevance of public health in this thesis is exemplified by the potential of the research to inform both the public health and medical communities about how emergency contraception is provided to female adolescents in children's hospital emergency departments. Comparison of results from both this pilot study and the full-scale study that will be based on this pilot study may lead to legislative and hospital policy change to improve the availability of emergency contraceptive services to adolescents, and hence to a reduction in the unintended pregnancy rate among adolescents.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:PITT/oai:PITTETD:etd-04122005-125431 |
| Date | 15 June 2005 |
| Creators | Kavanaugh, Megan Lynn |
| Contributors | Melanie A. Gold, Martha Ann Terry, Nathan Hershey |
| Publisher | University of Pittsburgh |
| Source Sets | University of Pittsburgh |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.library.pitt.edu/ETD/available/etd-04122005-125431/ |
| Rights | unrestricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached hereto a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to University of Pittsburgh or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
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