Contraceptive knowledge and practice among undergraduates at a Canadian university

A total of 509 undergraduate students, aged 17 to 23 years, were tested to assess the adequacy of their knowledge of methods of birth control. A level of adequate knowledge was arbitrarily defined a priori as one standard deviation below the mean score of a random sample of second-year medical students, who were assumed to have more than adequate knowledge on the basis of prior courses in reproductive physiology and human sexuality. Of the undergraduate population sampled, 34 per cent were found to have inadequate knowledge. This population is in need of birth control information. Of nonvirgins in the sample, 20.2 per cent risk unwanted pregnancy, the majority (78.3 per cent) in spite of adequate knowledge. This suggests that lack of motivation, rather than purely lack of information, is an important factor contributing to the unwanted pregnancy rate of the college student population.