Emergency contraception: prescribing practices of general internists compared with other primary care physicians. Journal   Contraception. Citation   Contraception. 69(1):43-5 Publication date   2004 Jan Authors   Chuang CH Waldman LJ Freund KM Ash AS Investigators   Cynthia H Chuang MeSH headings   Contraceptives, Postcoital Family Practice Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice Internal Medicine Physician's Practice Patterns Prescriptions, Drug MeSH qualifiers   administration & dosage statistics & numerical data 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.