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Show Table 1. Characteristics of Respondents* Characteristic Women, % Men, % <30 >30 High school graduate or less Some college College graduate Graduate degree Other < $20,000/ year $20,000 - $40,000 > $40,000/ year White Hispanic Asian, Native American, and Other Unspecified Latter-day Saint Catholic Nondenominational Christian Mainline Protestant No religion/ atheist/ agnostic Other Married Single Single in a committed heterosexual relationship Other 0 1 2 or more 0 1 2 or more Age (range 18-50. mean 29.4) 56.8 N.O. 43.2 N.O. Highest Education Attained 15.9 46.2 31.2 6.1 0.6 26.3 42.6 31.1 94.2 2.6 3.2 68.2 9.6 5.9 5.3 10.6 2.0 73.9 15.6 7.0 Household income Race or Ethnicity t 18.4 32.8 32.8 15.0 1.1 N.O. N.O. N.O. 94.4 2.8 2.8 Religious Affiliation Marital Status 74.7 5.3 4.7 5.4 7.7 1.8 90.0 1.1 8.3 3.5 .6 Lifetime Pregnancies (range 0-11. mean 2.1) 30.7 N.A. 17.3 N.A. 52.0 N.A. Previous Live Births (range 0-9. mean 2.1) 38.3 N.A. 16.3 N.A. 45.4 N.A. Currently Pregnant 10.6 N.A. N.O. = Data Not Obtained N.A. = Not Applicable *Although there were 317 total women respondents who qualified as "potentially fertile", some did not answer one or more of the demographic questions. The number of responses varied from 302 to 317 among the different demographic questions. Of the men who responded, 181 were identified as members of a potentially fertile couple. The number of male responses for each demographic question varied from 170 to 180. Percentages may total over 100 because of rounding. t There were no African Americans among the potentially fertile respondents. 3.5; 95% CI= 1.4 to 8.7). Men's and women's potential for future use of NFP were highly correlated. Using fertile couples as the unit of analysis (n-181), 23% of couples were likely to use NFP to avoid pregnancy (meaning both partners responded that they were likely or very likely to use NFP in the future to avoid pregnancy). Similarly, 52% of couples had both partners indicating high likelihood of future use of NFP to conceive. DISCUSSION This study indicates a high level of potential use of NFP either to avoid pregnancy or to conceive among potentially fertile women and their male partners in Utah. The level of potential use reported in this study is much higher than actual current use. However, it is likely that actual use in the future will be much less than the potential for use reported here, for several reasons. First, the brief description given in the questionnaire is inadequate to completely describe the use of modern NFP, which requires detailed personal instruction for optimal use (Stanford & Smith, 2000). Thus, respondents who indicated that they would consider using NFP would have to take the extra step of locating a source of competent NFP instruction, which is difficult in the context of a small number of qualified NFP teachers and in many cases, a lack of personal contact with others using NFP (Sharma, 1990). Second, among the majority of physicians, there is strong prejudice against NFP and misinformation about its effectiveness to avoid pregnancy (Stanford, Lemaire & Thurman, 1999). Third, the brief description given in the questionnaire emphasized that NFP can be up to 99% effective to avoid pregnancy if taught by qualified instructors and used exactly as directed. Although this level of method effectiveness has been well documented in the medical literature, typical pregnancy rates during NFP use are usually higher (usually from 3% to 20%), primarily because of couples having intercourse on days known to be fertile (Hilgers & Stanford, 1998; Kambic, 1991; Trussell & Kowal, 1998; Howard & Stanford, 1999). Emphasizing the highest possible method effectiveness may have increased the level of positive response for potential use to avoid pregnancy. However, the fact that the most common concern about NFP among women (41% of volunteered responses) was that it was not reliable enough suggests that there is a strong perception among the general public that NFP is not as effective as they would wish in actual use to avoid pregnancy, and that this perception was not changed by the brief description given in the questionnaire. A major finding of our study is that potential future use of NFP among Utah women and men was substantially higher for the purpose of conceiving than for the purpose of avoiding pregnancy. It is unlikely that interest in NFP to conceive would be substantially affected by the perceived level of effectiveness to avoid or the description given in the questionnaire. Modern NFP, based on vaginal mucus discharge, is likely to be more effective to conceive than NFP based on basal body temperature alone, or on calendar calculations (Stanford, White & Hataska, 2002). This may represent an important growth area for future use of NFP. Potential use among Utah women was higher than among women in Missouri, reported in a previous study, particularly for use to conceive (Stanford. Lemaire & Thurman, 1998). The proportion of women who reported they were likely to use NFP to avoid pregnancy was 29.6% in Utah and 22.5% in Missouri; the proportion likely to use NFP to conceive was 56.4% in Utah and 37.4% in Missouri. A higher proportion of Utah women wanted to have a future pregnancy (56.2% compared with 48.1% of Missouri women), or were currently trying to get pregnant (10.4% compared with 6.2% of Missouri women), while a lower proportion of Utah women reported that they did not want to be pregnant for the rest of their lives (24.0% compared with 35.3% of Missouri women). Further the mean number of previous live births was higher among Utah women (2.1 compared with 1.6 among the Missouri women). These differences probably reflect a cultural influence from the predominant LDS religion which encourages family-oriented lifestyles, and emphasizes the value of motherhood. The average number of persons per household in Utah is 3.13 while the national average is 2.67 persons per household (U.S Bureau of the Census, 1993). However, there are strong similarities between the Utah and Missouri studies, suggesting general patterns likely to be true in much of the United States. Potential for use of NFP to conceive is higher than use to avoid pregnancy in both studies. In the Missouri study, factors associated positively and independently with potential use of NFP to conceive were previous 42 Utah's Health: An Annual Review Volume DC |
