Adverse reactions from prolonged use of oral contraceptives

Abstract

The use of contraceptives is a practice for which there is a large adherence, however, such procedure can bring risk when the chronic use and not prescribed by a medical professional, and, even with the appropriate prescription, the lack of monitoring of the use can increase the risks of occurrence of adverse reactions. The present study is an exploratory, analytical research, which aimed to evaluate the pattern of use of oral contraceptive medications (OC) by women and specifically the occurrence of adverse reactions arising from the use of these medications, by sharing a questionnaire in social media, with questions about adherence to contraceptive therapy and how the use of such medications by women who agreed to participate in the research. It was observed that, of a total of 233 women who agreed to participate in the research, 65.4% had been using contraceptives for a period between 5 and 10 years. It was also possible to observe that 63.2% of them had headache as the predominant adverse reaction (P<0.05, ANOVA), but the occurrence of serious adverse reactions such as thrombosis (4.2%) was also observed, and that 87.9% of these acquired such drugs without asking for a medical prescription at the time of purchase. These results allow us to conclude that, in the population studied, there is a high rate of chronic use of contraceptives, many of which are being used without medical advice and presenting a significant occurrence of adverse reactions, bringing to light the need for health professionals to promote the monitoring and medical prescription of contraceptives, and highlighting the problem of sale/dispensing without prescription, which can act as a trigger to maximize the occurrence of adverse reactions and non-rational and abusive use of such medications.