Emergency Contraception (EC) is used within a few days of unprotected sex to prevent an unintended pregnancy.
About one quarter of pregnancies in south of Iran are unintended. EC is important option that women can use
after unprotected sex or contraceptive failure for preventing of unplanned pregnancies and adverse maternal and
perinatal health outcomes. Health staff have influence on women’s contraceptive behavior and their knowledge
and attitudes about EC can affect women’s contraceptive behaviors. Data are lacking about the knowledge,
attitude and practice of hormonal EC method among health staff in Bushehr state, south of Iran. A cross-sectional
study using self administered questionnaire was conducted. A sample of 170 health staff were surveyed. The
mean age of respondents was 30.6±5.1. Overall 6.5% of participants had poor knowledge, 25.2% moderate
knowledge, 68.3% good knowledge about EC. Half of participants had positive and half had negative attitude
towards the EC method. Midwives and family health workers were more knowledgeable (p<0.05) and more
frequently counseled women about EC than general practitioners (GPs) (p<0.001). The most cited reason for EC
prescriptions were rupture condom and none use of contraception. Our findings showed despite of majority of
health staff had good knowledge about EC, their knowledge about the indications for prescription of EC and its
side effects was inadequate. The educational efforts for health staff should be focused more on the specific
aspects of EC method. GPs also should be more involved in family planning program
