Conocimientos sobre métodos anticonceptivos de emergencia en estudiantes universitarios: revisión sistemática

Abstract

Introduction: unplanned pregnancies cause several problems such as economic instability, abortions without medical advice, with possible negligence with newborns. Therefore, emergency contraceptive methods are an alternative in risky sexual relations. General objective: determine the level of knowledge about emergency contraceptive methods in university students. Methodology: it is a systematic review, including PubMed, Scopus, and Web Of Science databases. The search period included from April 2019 to April 2023; bibliography in English and Spanish is included; descriptive, analytical, cross-sectional studies were admitted. The MeSH/DeCS keywords "Postcoital Contraceptivos" "Emergency Contraceptives" "Morning After Pill" "Knowledge" "University Students" were used, while for the bibliography in Spanish "Contraceptivo de Emergencia" "Poscoital Contraceptive" "Píldora del Día" After” “Knowledge” “University Students” expanding the search with the Boolean operators “AND”, “OR”. 17 articles were identified after the screening and suitability process, to be included in the systematic review. Results: in two articles they showed that 89.2% and 70% of people had an adequate level of knowledge (final score >75%) while the rest of the articles reported that the participants had deficient knowledge, considerable numbers were observed (25 7% - 81%) of people who still consider EC an abortion method and other studies identify high numbers of people who think EC protects against STDs. Conclusions: The level of knowledge is low in relation to the use of contraceptive methods due to the lack of sexual education and the poor source of information. Keywords: Contraceptives. Emergency contraception. Knowledge.