Disparities in knowledge and interest about benefits and risks of combined oral contraceptives

Abstract

While most women were confident of being knowledgeable about COCs, many were unaware of their knowledge gap. Healthcare professionals should proactively educate about items relevant to their patients. Counselling materials provided by the gynaecologist seem to be an appropriate communication channel. Additional efforts are needed to improve knowledge of the thrombotic and other risk associated with COCs.

Factors influencing young women’s contraceptive choices

“…Our findings about contraceptive information sources for young women confirm those reported internationally [16][17][18] and include discussions with friends, school education and searching the internet. Despite consulting friends or the internet most often for contraceptive advice, most women recognised their limited reliability.…”

Does structured counselling influence combined hormonal contraceptive choice?

“…This entails that a dialogue should take place, which may help to ensure the participant's understanding and correct interpretation of all information provided during the consultation. On top of this, easy-to-understand literature, specifically conceived for patients (including leaflets) and containing all relevant information, may also be extremely useful according to some authors20, 21.…”

Mothers' attitude to the use of a combined oral contraceptive pill by their daughters for menstrual disorders or contraception

“…Despite these, the questionnaire included the most widely studied aspects of non-contraceptive benefits and risks of the COC pill and knowledge score or uncertainty score have been used in previous literature. 15,16 Although this study was conducted in only one centre and in Chinese women only, it helps clinicians to understand the low levels of acceptance of and compliance with prescribed COC pills.…”

“…Finally, demographic data and their personal experience in using COC pills were collected. Knowledge score and uncertainty score were calculated for the participants based on their response 15,16 -knowledge score was defined as the score of correct answers with 1 score given for each correct answer (ie range from 0-22); a "don't know" reply would create the uncertainty score. The participants provided written informed consent, and approval was obtained from the local ethics committee (CRE-2012.186).…”

“…They also have little awareness of the risks of COC. 15 For female adolescents, their decision about whether to use COC is likely to be influenced by their parents, especially their mothers, who may be giving advice to their daughters based on little or erroneous knowledge. This may lead mothers to make decisions that are not in their daughter's best interests.…”