|
 In the sample population of 15-24 year olds, men and women who
feared condoms would interfere with pleasure and women who said they
would be “pleased” by an unplanned pregnancy were two to four times
more likely than others to have used withdrawal.
“The condom and pleasure variable didn't surprise me, it's
intuitive, it makes sense, but I think the strength of its
association surprised me,” said study coauthor Jenny Higgins, a
public health researcher at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.
She added that scientists don't often ask about pleasure in research
on contraception and condoms but when they do, they learn a lot more
about who is using certain methods and why.
Withdrawal or “pulling out” is not considered to be an effective
form of birth control on its own and is not recognized by the
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as a contraceptive
method, although Planned Parenthood says it can work effectively up
to 96 percent of the time if done correctly every time.
“I think that withdrawal as a method is much less effective than
many great methods, like IUDs for example, so I would never
recommend that young persons only use withdrawal,” Higgins said.
But withdrawal could be a great option as a backup or additional
method, she said, and that’s how many of the young adults in the
study reported using it.
For their study, published in the journal Contraception, Higgins and
her coauthor used national survey data for 2006-2010. They analyzed
responses from a total of 1,607 young men and 1,849 young women,
most in their 20s, who were sexually active, not pregnant or trying
to get pregnant, and not infertile or sterile.
Participants were asked what types of contraceptives they had used
the last time they had sex before the survey. About 14 percent of
participants said they’d used withdrawal with additional
contraceptive methods, and 7 percent said they only used withdrawal.
About 70 percent of the women and almost 60 percent of men said they
would be upset if the woman got pregnant. But among those women who
said they’d be pleased by a pregnancy, 13 percent used withdrawal,
compared to 6 percent of women who would not be pleased.
Just over 60 percent of women said using a condom wouldn’t reduce
their physical pleasure while just over 30 percent of men said the
same.
For both women and men, those who felt that condoms were likely to
diminish sexual pleasure were more than twice as likely to have used
withdrawal with or without other methods.
Among men and women who used withdrawal, the majority did so in
conjunction with other methods, sometimes up to a total of three,
the researchers note.
About 65 percent of men and women reported use of withdrawal along
with an IUD or hormonal contraceptive such as birth control pills or
implants. Less than a third used just a condom plus withdrawal or
withdrawal alone.
[to top of second column] |
The study team also analyzed socioeconomic factors, including age,
race, religion, personal and family education levels, health
insurance status and receipt of public assistance. None of these
correlated with the likelihood of using the withdrawal method.
Richard de Visser, a senior lecturer in psychology at the University
of Sussex in the UK, said these findings are somewhat disappointing
because they suggest that many young people are not acting to
protect themselves properly against the risk of unplanned pregnancy
or sexually transmitted infections.
“It is perhaps not surprising that people who were less concerned
about unplanned pregnancy were more likely to report use of
withdrawal,” de Visser told Reuters Health by email.
De Visser, who was not involved in the study, said “many people have
negative attitudes toward condoms - some will not use them at all,
opting instead for less reliable methods such as withdrawal.”
These findings suggest that many people have misperceptions about
the efficacy of withdrawal that should be addressed, he added.
“In addition to looking at withdrawal we also need to do more to
encourage correct use of condoms - that means putting them on before
any genital contact and not removing them early - and to improve
attitudes toward condom use,” he said.
Higgins, pointing to the majority of withdrawal users who used an
additional method, cautioned, “we need to be careful before we
malign withdrawal users – these could be extremely motivated young
people who are doing this on top of other things.”
Younger adults use condoms more frequently than any other age group,
Higgins added. “I feel like there's this tendency to say that young
people are really bad about this stuff, but they can be better than
most older adults,” she said. “I feel they are doing things in some
ways better than we're giving them credit for.”
SOURCE: http://bit.ly/1zjinUu
Contraception, online December 18, 2104.
[© 2015 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.] Copyright 2015 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. |
