People Can Use Contraception: Health Care Providers' Assessments of Non-life-threatening Side Effects of Birth Control

• In Event: 243 - Regular Session. Health Care and Care Delivery

Abstract

Although a wide variety of birth control methods are now widely available, more than half of pregnancies in the United States are reported as unintended. According to previous research, women's discontinuation of contraception, particularly because of their dissatisfaction with the side effects of hormonal birth control, can contribute to this high rate of unintended pregnancies. This research asks whether non-life-threatening side effects of hormonal birth control, like weight gain, mood changes, and bleeding, hold similar salience for family planning health care providers. Through in-depth interviews with 24 providers, I find that a significant minority believe that women should not have a problem selecting a satisfactory method of birth control and/or are skeptical of their patients' reports of side effects. I discuss the potential impacts of this discordance between laywomen's and provider's assessments of contraception for clinical care.

Author

• Lindsay M Stevens, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey