Overview and Aims:

Pregnancy is an opportunity to perform postpartum contraceptive counselling, which is important to reduce the rate of unwanted pregnancies. With the purpose of knowing the attitudes, behaviours and concerns of health professionals about contraception in the postpartum period, a multicentre study was conducted in Portugal.

Study design, population and methodology:

A questionnaire with questions related to attitudes, practices and concerns of contraceptive counselling in pregnancy and postpartum was created and distributed in six hospital centres. This survey was intended for health professionals (physicians and nurses) and was conducted in order to ensure the anonymity and confidentiality of the participants. Descriptive study of the answers obtained.

Results:

There were 310 answers: 175 from doctors (56,5%) and 135 from nurses (43,5%). During pregnancy, 35.5% (n=110) always inform the woman about contraceptive options and 18.1% (n=56) if the possibility of tubal ligation arises. At discharge, the majority (81.6%, n=253) inform and advise about contraceptive options. There are 45 professionals (14.5%) who do not inform women, pointing out as reasons ‘the not appropriateness of the moment’ and ‘lack of time’. The majority of respondents consider that women should have contraceptive counselling during pregnancy (78.4%, n=243) and about one fifth (21.6%, n=67) do not. The reasons given being: ‘information should be referred to the postpartum review consultation’ and ‘the information given at discharge is sufficient’ (41.8%, n=28). In this group, 25.4% (n=17) does not intend to change their attitude, 11.9% (n=8) states that they will change their attitude e 46.3% (n=31) consider changing their attitude.

Conclusions:

In the population studied, contraceptive counselling during pregnancy is not universal. Although most of the professionals considered contraceptive counselling during pregnancy important, in current practice it is deferred to maternity discharge or to the postpartum review consultation.

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