Emergency Contraception and the Knowledge of Community Pharmacists in Isfahan, Iran

Objectives: emergency contraception (ec) is a special contraception method that prevents pregnancy after an unsafe sexual contact. phar- macists, as the most available member of medical team have a unique role in patient education for appropriate use of contraceptive methods. in this study, we assessed the pharmacists' knowledge about emergency contraception. methods: a researcher made questionnaire was developed and used according to national guide line and electronic databanks. a group of experts and pharmacists validated the questionnaire. reliability was measured by half–split test. the questionnaires were filled by phar- macists. results: average knowledge score were 8.12 ± 0.28 for women and 7.83 ± 0.31 for men (from a maximum of 15) which showed no signifi- cant difference between men and women (p = 0.492). there was no significant difference between pharmacists who had precipitated in con- tinuing education programs and that of those who had not (p = 0.286). scores of pharmacists who graduated 13 years ago or more did not sig- nificantly differ from others (p = 0.287). conclusions: because of low scores of pharmacist’s knowledge about ec and the importance of unintended pregnancy prevention, its im- provement is an urgent need. regular and frequent continuing educa- tion programs could be one of the recommended interventions.