Knowledge and availability of the emergency contraceptive pills. An Italian women survey

Aim: Assessing to what extent do Italian women actually know about the emergency contraceptive pills and about their availability. Materials and Methods: A 12-questions questionnaire was organized to investigate the knowledge about the emergency contraceptive pills in a sample of Italian women. The sample was built by sending the questionnaire on time, by using the Computer Assisted Web Interviewing (CAWI). Both open and closed answers were collected. Results: 1,580 eligible women fully answered the questionnaire. It appears that women still face some difficulties to obtain emergency contraceptive pills and have poor knowledge about how the post-coital pills work, and how they can obtain them in Italy. The difficulties to obtain emergency contraceptive pills seems to be in relation to the pharmacologists' resistance to provide them. Women's perception of the pharmacologists' resistance to provide pills is unspecific. Conclusion: The pharmacologists' resistance to provide pills should be best investigated, as ethical goals and liability issues could be both involved.