The rapid growth in the use of hormonal contraceptives gives grounds for assessing their influence on various biochemical parameters of the human system since its safety has become arguable and in doubt. This study investigated the effects of oral contrac

Abstract

The rapid growth in the use of hormonal contraceptives gives grounds for assessing their influence on various biochemical parameters of the human system since its safety has become arguable and in doubt. This study investigated the effects of oral contraceptives on some haematological parameters among female students in University of Calabar, Nigeria. A simple randomized study approach was used to recruit 100 healthy women; of which 50 were oral contraceptive users as subjects and 50 non-contraceptives users as controls. A well-constructed questionnaire was developed to gather data on socio-demography, knowledge and frequency of use of contraceptives by female students in UNICAL Hostels. Blood samples were collected for blood count analyses using an automated haematology analyzer. Data was analyzed using SPSS (V.20.0). Data was expressed in means (Mean ± SD) for the different variables. T-test of association statistic was used to compare the mean scores of the subjects and the controls. P-value < 0.05 was considered statistically significant. The study observed mean of WBC (P = 0.100) to be statistically insignificant while red blood cell (RBC) and platelet count were significantly higher among oral contraceptive users compared to non-users (P = 0.001) and (P = 0.007) respectively. Conclusively, this study has shown that the effects of oral contraceptives on users are both ways; some decrease (WBC) while others increase (RBC and PLT). Despite resulting in increase or decrease, in the haematological parameters, the alterations in this study were all within the reference ranges of haematological parameters.