Emergency contraception: prescribing practices of general internists compared with other primary care physicians

Abstract

Primary care physicians of all specialties should be familiar with prescribing emergency contraception (EC). We conducted a mail survey of 282 randomly sampled physicians in general internal medicine (31%), family medicine (34%) and obstetrics-gynecology (35%). Experience with prescribing EC significantly differed by specialty (63% of general internists, 76% of family physicians, and 94% of obstetrician-gynecologists, p < 0.0001). Controlling for year of graduation, gender, religion and practice location, family physicians [adjusted odds ratio (OR): 2.5, 95% confidence interval (CI): 1.2-5.2] and obstetrician-gynecologists (adjusted OR: 11.2, 95% CI: 4.0-31.3) were still significantly more likely to have ever prescribed EC than general internists. Efforts to increase awareness and knowledge of EC should be aimed at general internists since they provide primary care for many reproductive age women.