Knowledge, Motivations to Avoid Pregnancy and Avoidance of Hormonal Methods: A Mixed Methods Approach

Amanda T. Berger, Child Trends
Kristen Peterson, ICF International
Jennifer Manlove, Child Trends
Lina Guzman, Child Trends

Prior studies points to the importance of knowledge, motivations, and attitudes in women’s contraceptive decisions, but they often rely on one-dimensional measures and fail to explore how and why these characteristics influence women’s contraceptive behaviors. This study explores women’s knowledge, motivations, and attitudes through latent class analysis of nationally-representative data from unmarried young women aged 18-29. Further, we draws on qualitative data from women of the same age to elucidate the quantitative findings. Latent class analysis revealed four classes of knowledge, motivations, and attitudes (including concerns about side effects and desires to avoid hormonal methods); from the qualitative data, women’s stories were used to describe these classes. For some women, motivations to prevent pregnancy are high, but knowledge is low. For others, knowledge is high but motivations are low; for others they are both low. Additionally, classes differ by sociodemographic characteristics and contraceptive method use.