| Popis: |
A scenario study was conducted to assess the extent to which the unintended pregnancy rate in Japan, where oral contraceptives (OC) have not been legalized for family planning purposes and couples rely mainly on condoms, might change if more women were to use OC. Because current rates of unintended pregnancy and abortion in Japan are not known, data provided by the 1994 Japanese National Survey on Family Planning were used to construct scenarios for national contraceptive use. Annual failure rates of contraceptive methods and nonuse were applied to the contraceptive use scenarios, to obtain estimates of the annual number of contraceptive failure-related pregnancies. Subsequently, contraceptive practice situations assuming higher OC use rates were defined, and the associated change in the number of contraceptive failure-related pregnancies was estimated for each situation. It emerged that OC use rates of 15% decreased the expected number of unintended pregnancies by 13%-17%, whereas use rates of 25% resulted in decreases of 22%-29% and use rates of 50% in decreases of 45%-58%. The findings were reasonably robust to variation in the assumptions that were made. In conclusion, each theoretical percentage increase in the OC use rate in Japan was found to lead to a roughly equivalent percentage decrease in the number of unintended pregnancies.A scenario study was conducted in Japan, where oral contraceptives (OCs) have not been legalized for family planning purposes, to assess the extent to which more widespread OC use would reduce the unintended pregnancy rate. This approach was necessary because of the lack of national data on current rates of either induced abortion or unintended pregnancy. Scenarios for national contraceptive use were constructed on the basis of data from the 1994 Japanese National Survey on Family Planning. Annual failure rates associated with various contraceptive methods and contraceptive nonuse were applied to the survey data. It was assumed that women in need of contraception who currently used no method or relied on rhythm, basal body temperature, withdrawal, condoms, and spermicides were potential OC users. Estimations suggested that an OC use rate of 15% would decrease the expected number of unintended pregnancies by 13-17%, while use rates of 25% and 50% were associated with decreases of 22-29% and 45-58%, respectively. The percentage changes in the predicted numbers of unintended pregnancies were very robust to the various assumptions made, despite uncertainty about current numbers of unintended pregnancies in Japan and the contraceptive needs of nonusers. In the 1994 survey, 13% of women who knew about OCs said they would use the method if it became available. |
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