Background: The main objective of the study was to establish the preferences of use and attitudes towards contraceptive methods among women and men aged 14 to 45 years, visitors of the 2011 Peninsula Festival. The objectives of the present analysis were to describe and compare contraceptive use among Romanian women and men, and to investigate the effects of age, education, profession, marital status on contraceptive use.
Material and method: The study was carried out as a cross-sectional survey of randomly selected women and men, aged 14–45 years, who participated at the 2011 Peninsula Festival in Tîrgu Mureş, Romania. For data collection anonymous self-evaluation questionnaires were used, completed by a total number of 644 subjects, both males and females.
Results: The gender proportion of the sample was: 50.3% femaleS, 49.7% maleS. Mean age was 21.76 years, SD 4.65. The most common method used by all the surveyed visitors were condoms (72.5%), oral contraceptives (19.9%), and withdrawal method (14.9%). Contraceptive methods that are the least used: vasectomy (not used by anyone), female surgical sterilization and hormonal injections (0.2%), female barrier (0.3%), intrauterine device (0.8%). Significant differences were observed among the different age and marital status groups: the condom is the most used method among young adults and teenagerss, but the less used method among married subjects.
Conclusions: Our results suggest the need for information, education and provision of contraceptive services. An appropriate health education of the population and the need for an adequate level of knowledge regarding different and available contraceptive methods is imperative.