Postrzeganie naturalnych metod rozpoznawania płodności przez studentów uczelni medycznych, technicznych i katolickich

Family planning methods, also called birth control, are closely related to the lives of most people. The concept of family planning methods includes both contraceptive and natural methods. Common objective of all methods is the possibility of making a decision to postpone conception in time, choosing a convenient time to have children as well as the number of children. The natural methods of fertility recognition are based on the physiological functions of the man and woman organisms. Their main assumption is woman's periodic fertility. The article attempts to determine how students of medical, technical and catholic universities perceive natural methods of recognizing fertility. The study group consisted of 467 students, including 190 medical (41%), 131 technical (28%) and 146 catholic (31%) universities students. The majority of the surveyed group were women - 81% (380 respondents). The age range of the group was from 19 to 29 years old. 44% of all respondents believe that natural fertility recognition methods are safe for health and nearly half of the group (48%) have no knowledge on this subject. The surveyed students most often indicated that natural methods are not very effective (39.61%). The most frequently declared source of knowledge about family planning methods is the internet (71%) and books (60%), 56% obtained knowledge from a doctor. Students of the medical school assess their knowledge significantly better than respondents from technical and catholic university (p <0.001). The same group substantially more often responded correctly to the questions asked - from 44.68 to 64.15%. The perception of natural methods of recognizing fertility by students is undoubtedly determined by the source from which young people most often derive information. This is related to the health safety assessment of these methods - ignorance is usually declared in this regard. The general level of knowledge regarding human fertility seems insufficient. The consequence of this is the low assessment of the effectiveness of natural methods in the studied group. At the same time, the self-assessment of knowledge in the surveyed group shows that the majority is satisfied with the level of their knowledge. It should be stated that students of medical universities present a significantly higher level of knowledge.