Contessa: a longitudinal study of contraception discontinuation

Aim

We are aiming to fill a knowledge gap about how and why women stop using or switch contraceptives in England. We also want to explore:

• how often women stop or switch contraceptives
• the patterns of stopping or switching contraceptives
• the experiences of, and reasons for, discontinuation

The Contessa technical report is available below.

The full report will be published later this year.

Methodology

We conducted four short telephone interviews with the same sample of women over a 20 month period and researchers at the MRC Social and Public Health Sciences Unit led on in-depth interviews with a number of women who were identified as at higher risk of unplanned pregnancy.

Download technical report