ADVERSE EFFECTS OF ORAL CONTRACEPTIVES: AN ANALYSIS OF THE INFORMATION AVAILABLE TO THE POPULATION ON GOOGLE

• DOI: https://doi.org/10.22533/at.ed.15951625240310

• Palavras-chave: contraception, combined oral contraceptive, single oral contraceptive, prescription.

• Keywords: contraception, combined oral contraceptive, single oral contraceptive, prescription.

• Abstract:

  It is known that around 88% of women with an active sex life use some form of contraception. These can be categorized into two main groups: reversible and definitive. Among the reversible methods, oral contraceptives are the most widely used by Brazilian women. Despite being widely used, oral contraceptives can cause a number of adverse effects in their users, which can lead them to seek information about these drugs on internet search engines. The aim of this study was to assess the quality of information about the adverse effects of oral contraceptives available on the Google search platform. This is a descriptive study. The choice of Google as the search source was based on its popularity in Brazil. Thus, certain expressions were used as search descriptors, based on the following question: "What are the adverse effects of oral contraceptives?". The first 10 search results for each expression were considered for data analysis.  To analyze the quality of the information on the sites, three criteria were established (technical, comprehensiveness and accuracy) containing quality indicators. A checklist was drawn up which assigned a score out of 10 to each indicator, giving a maximum score of 100 points. A total of 36 websites were analyzed. Analysis of the results showed that the population has access to information about the adverse effects of oral contraceptives via Google. The websites obtained an average score of 64%, showing that the quality of the information is average, but the main problems associated with inadequate/incomplete information were related to the lack of information about the person technically responsible for the article, the lack of citation of the bibliographic sources used and the lack of mention of the need for the drug to be prescribed by a health professional. In addition, the majority of websites point to the prevention of pregnancy as the only therapeutic benefit of oral contraceptives. The most frequently cited adverse effects were cardiovascular problems, headaches, nausea, breakthrough bleeding and lack of libido. Despite the existence of several websites that discuss the adverse effects of oral contraceptives, it is necessary to provide more appropriate information on digital media for the population to access, especially on Google. In addition, there is a lack of clarification about the need for the drug to be prescribed by a health professional, which can put the population at risk of self-medication and exacerbate the appearance of adverse effects.