The study aimed to compare a 2013 nationwide survey of 1001 women representative of the Swedish female population with a similar survey in 2017 after new contraceptive use guidelines were published in 2014.
Women between 16 and 49 years of age took part in a telephone survey; questions covered demographics, contraceptive use, knowledge of and attitudes towards contraception, the importance of monthly bleeding, and unintended pregnancy experience. We compared the responses collected in 2013 with those contained in 2017.
Of all women in 2017, 717/1008 were currently using contraception; 291/1008 women were not. LARC was used by 311/1008 women, which significantly increased from 2013. The unmet need for contraception in Sweden in 2017 was estimated to be 15.2%. A total of 783 women had never experienced an unintended pregnancy. A significantly higher proportion of unintended pregnancies reported in 2017 were terminated compared with 2013.
Sweden has a large unmet need for contraception. In 2017, LARC use had increased compared with 2013. A large proportion of women had experienced an unintended pregnancy. Increasing overall contraceptive use is essential to reduce the rates of unintended and unwanted pregnancies.
Reference: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13625187.2019.1581163
