Contraceptive Use After Emergency Contraception Clinical Trial
Official title:
Pharmacy Based Interventions for Initiating Effective Contraception Following the Use of Emergency Contraception : a Feasibility Study
Pharmacists do not provide immediate contraception to women after emergency contraception
(EC); they can only give advice on local contraceptive services.
The investigators wish to establish the following 2 pharmacy- based interventions in NHS
Lothian, designed to increase uptake of effective contraception as soon as possible, after
EC
1. Pharmacists would provide one packet of progestogen-only pills, giving women one month
to arrange an appointment with contraceptive services.
2. Rapid access to a family planning clinic upon presentation of the empty EC packet.
Women would be seen as a 'walk-in' and contraception provided.
If feasible, these interventions could reduce unintended pregnancies.
Participating pharmacies will be randomised to provide one of the interventions, or standard
care (verbal/written advice on local contraceptive services).
Women requesting EC from study pharmacies will be recruited by the research nurse/doctor to
participate in the study that will involve them consenting to contact by telephone 6-8 weeks
after EC by the researcher, to evaluate the interventions in terms of :
(i) determine women's experiences/ views of the interventions and control. (ii) determine if
women have commenced effective contraception and if not , reasons why.
A subset of 12 women will also be invited for in-depth interview to collect more detailed
qualitative data on their EC experience.
The investigators also wish to (iii) explore pharmacists views on the interventions
Data from this pilot will enable the investigators to determine whether a larger multisite
study is feasible. The aims of a larger study being to determine if either of the two
interventions being tested result in an increased proportion of women using effective
ongoing contraception compared to the control.
The investigators propose to test 2 pharmacy based interventions to increase uptake of
effective contraception after EC:
1. Pharmacists would provide one packet of progestogen-only pills to women, so that they
would have 28 days to arrange an appointment with contraceptive services to get a
supply of ongoing contraception.
2. Rapid access to a family planning clinic upon presentation of their empty(used) packet
of EC. Women would be seen as a 'walk-in' (without appointment) and ongoing
contraception discussed and provided.
These interventions would be compared with the status quo, i.e. pharmacists give verbal
advice and written information on local contraceptive services where ongoing contraception
can be accessed.
The interventions that we are testing are low cost i.e one packet of progestogen-only pills
(£3 for most costly brand) plus additional consultation time with the pharmacist (estimated
20 mins@ £1 per minute), versus the staff consultation time in a family planning clinic. In
the family planning clinic, women would be seen as a 'walk-in' and so this may not add
costs, since staff are already present.These interventions could, if shown to be effective,
offer huge costs savings to the NHS, by reducing the costs of unintended pregnancies
(abortion, miscarriage, birth).
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Allocation: Randomized, Intervention Model: Parallel Assignment, Masking: Open Label, Primary Purpose: Health Services Research