Emergency contraception is used as an emergency procedure to prevent unintended pregnancy secondary to an unprotected sexual intercourse and method failure.
In Ejara Tolossa, et al. research review from College of Health Sciences at Hawassa and Debremarkos Universities, published in Advances in Reproductive Sciences 2013 vol.1 by Scientific Research Publishing. His team assessed the level of knowledge and utilization of emergency contraception among 776 undergraduate regular female students of Hawassa University, south Ethiopia. Three hundred seventy nine (72.2%) of the respondents had knowledge about emergency contraceptives and only 41 (10.8%) of them had ever used emergency contraceptives; oral contraceptive pills were the most widely used form of all emergency contraceptives 41 (10.8%). The study found a very close link between emergency contraception awareness and age, marital status and age at menarche; moreover, it also revealed that residence, year of study and experience of forced sex were predictors of emergency contraception utilization. The results indicate female university students had been experiencing high rate of unintended sexual practice and pregnancy, low knowledge level and utilization of emergency contraceptives; moreover, they did not have access to youth-friendly services. Therefore, there is a need for collaborated effort to improve service access and scale up their utilization level to prevent unwanted pregnancy.