Contraceptive method selection profile among students and professionals of two medical schools

Perfil de selección de métodos anticonceptivos de los estudiantes y profesionales de dos facultades de medicina

 Introduction: access to contraception is a fundamental right for ensuring a free, complete and active sexual life. Adequate counseling provides information to achieve an autonomous decision. Objective: to determine the contraceptive method selection profile among students and professionals of two medical schools in Cali, Colombia. Materials and methods: an observational, descriptive cross-sectional study. Excel was used for data processing, conducting multivariate analysis for sociodemographic characteristics by gender and academic program, and a multiple correspondence analysis to determine the dimensions of categorical variables and the association between variables. Results and discussion: 87 health sciences students were surveyed, of which 72 were females, 31 were medicine undergraduate students, 34 medicine postgraduate students and 22 were gynecology residents. As for the preferred method, 32% stated they used the pill, 17% intrauterine devices and 13% condoms. Fifty-one (51) respondents stated that they had not received contraceptive counseling in the last year and 58% admitted that the choice was made autonomously. The most common method used in the last year was contraceptive pills (37,5%) among females and condoms (39,3%) among males. Conclusions: academic training services and the health system should be responsible for promoting and ensuring training on contraceptive counseling for healthcare personnel, in the sexual and reproductive rights context.