Measuring Consistency of Contraception Use Over Time Among Teen Mothers

By ETR | July 19, 2016
Note: We're posting about some of the presentations ETR researchers and professional development specialists are offering at the Office of Adolescent Health Teen Pregnancy Prevention Grantee Conference July 19-21.

Teen parents face a number of challenges. When a teen mother has a rapid repeat birth—a second (or more) child before age 20—the challenges become even greater. Almost 1 in 5 teen births is a repeat birth, and only about 1 in 5 sexually active teen mothers use the most effective birth control methods.

 

For the past 6 years, ETR researcher Pam Drake, PhD, has been collaborating with Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles (CHLA) Division of Adolescent and Young Adult Medicine on a project designed to support teen parents and prevent unintended repeat births. One strategy in the project is to increase the use of long-acting reversible contraception (LARC). These contraceptives, including IUDs and hormonal implants, are the most effective available today, and are safe for most women, including adolescents.

On Wednesday, July 20, Dr. Drake and co-presenters Mona Desai, MPH, Leslie Clark, PhD and Vivian Okonta, all from CHLA, are offering a poster describing how they measured the consistency of contraception use over time with the teen mothers participating in their project.

New Methods of Collecting Information

A traditional information-gathering approach in this kind of study might ask, for example, whether a participant had been sexually active in the past three months, then ask whether she used contraception at any point during that period. But the study group wanted more detail about the patterns and consistency in contraceptive use among teen mothers. They tried out two new methods for collecting information to see if they could find better ways to gather this data.

In the first, they used a method called “Retrospective Calendaring.” Study participants were asked to think about the past 30 days and indicate whether they had had sex. If the answer was “yes,” they were asked what contraception they used or, if they hadn’t used any, the reasons they didn’t.

This was difficult in the study because participants were using an Audio Computer-Assisted Self-Interview (ACASI) to respond to the questions. Instead of viewing a calendar, they had to think back 0-30 days, then 30-60 days, then 60-90 days. The process was burdensome, especially for teens using LARCs, because even though they were using a long-acting contraceptive, they still had to answer for each time period. The researchers were also concerned about accuracy with this method.

The second method is called “Contraception-Method Dependent.” In this approach, the participant was first asked about what method she was using. Follow-up questions were relevant to the method. This approach seemed to be less burdensome and more intuitive to complete.

By comparing different methods of data-collection, these researchers are helping to guide more effective evaluations in the future. If you’re at the conference, stop by their poster session to discuss some of the other pros and cons of these new methods for collecting information.

This project was made possible by Grant Number 90AP2674 from the Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families. Its contents are solely the responsibility of CHLA and do not necessarily represent the official views of the DHHS, ACF.