Knowledge and implementation of young men about emergency contraception

The aim of this study is to determine young males' knowledge and use cases of emergency contraception methods (EC). This research is a descriptive study and was applied to male students who received apprenticeship, semiskilled and mastership education in 2012-2013 Academic Year at Aydın Vocational Training Centre. In this term there existed 762 enrolled male student at school. Sampling was not carried out in this study and we aimed to reach all the male students who are single and aged between 15 and 24. We reached 708 male students in the period when we collected the data, 11 of them did not want to participate in the research and the sample consisted of 697 male students. During the analysis of data collected through question form, we benefitted from descriptive statistics. It was determined that the average age of the stundets that took part in the research was 17,9±1,8 and 88,9% of them were graduates from secondary school, 34% of them were taking alcohol and smoking and 3% of them were using drugs. The students told that 58.1% of them had a sexual experience and 39,2% of them had their first sexual experience at the age of 15 or before that. They also stated that 31,3% of them were aware of EC methods, 14,2% of them had no information about this issue and 23,8% said EC is used in case of unprotected sexual intercourse, 10% said EC is used in case of rape, 13,3% of them said EC methods were used in case of forgetting the contraception methods or misusing them. It was determined that only 15 of 697 students knew the use period of EC and 5 of them knew the correct name of the method used for EC. 33% of the students stated that their female friends or partners had used EC before but when it was asked what the name of the EC method was, only 19 of them said Norleva or morning-after pill. 51,5% of the young males wanted to get information about EC methods. As a result, sexuality is common among these working young males that took part in our research but level of EC use by these young men is low. Therefore, these young men are under risk in terms of unintended pregnancies. Raising the awareness of them about EC by health workers and educators may considerably prevent unintended pregnancies.