ABSTRACT
INTRODUCTION
Adolescents and young adults may experience negative health consequences from early unprotected sexual activity, such as unintended pregnancy, unsafe abortion, sexually transmitted infections and pregnancy related mortality and morbidity (Chandra-Mouli et al., 2014).Contraception is an effective means of combating the problem of unwanted pregnancy and unsafe abortion, it is an effective means of fertility control and helps in promoting maternal and child health (Adewole et al., 2002). Women often have to put up with side effects when using contraceptives such as acne, irregular bleeding, fever and headache. Negative perception towards medication as a result of side effects will reduce compliance.In 2006, Huber demonstrated in his study that side effects are the major contributors of poor adherence to medications.
OBJECTIVES
The objective of this study is to document the perception of female students of University of Benin towards the tolerability of contraceptives and to determine probable adherence.
METHODS
The study was a cross sectional study carried out in University of Benin, Edo State, Nigeria. The target samples were undergraduate female students across various faculties of the university. Four hundred and seventy persons were sampled using convenience sampling method. Post graduate and part time female students were excluded from this study. The research instrument for data collection was a two-part self-reported questionnaire. The first part was to collect demographic data while the second part consist of two likert scale questions where respondents were to indicate how well they can tolerate a particular side effect and if they will comply in the presence of such side effect. The questionnaire was collected, coded, entered into Microsoft excel 2013 and crossed checked for accuracy. It was analyzed with the aid of Graphpad Instat 3.0, student t-test and one-way Analysis of Variance was used where appropriate as inferential analysis. Association between demographic data and perception scores were investigated. P –valves <0.05 were interpreted as significant.
RESULTS
Majority of the participants were unmarried (99%) and also most participants were between the ages of 19-22 years. There was no significant relationship between demographic factors (age, marital status, allowance per month and study course) with tolerability of side effects and probable adherence. However, when the tolerability score was split into low tolerability and high tolerability, there was a significant relationship (p<0.001) with probable adherence.
CONCLUSION
The study revealed that females who have favorable tolerability perception towards side effects of contraceptives have a high probability of adhering to them. In addition, no significant relationship was found between demographic factors, side effect tolerability and probable adherence.
