Improving access to a range of contraceptive options, including long-acting methods, may help to reduce contraceptive failure and unintended pregnancy. This according to an analysis of data from 43 countries which estimated typical use contraceptive failure rates for 7 contraceptive methods at 12, 24, and 36 months of use. Researchers found:

• Across all countries, reported 12-month typical-use failure rates were lowest for users of longer-acting methods such as implants (0.6 failures per 100 episodes of use), intrauterine devices (1.4), and injectables (1.7).

• Intermediate failure rates for users of short-term resupply methods such as oral contraceptive pills (5.5) and male condoms (5.4).

• Typical-use failure rates were highest for users of traditional methods such as withdrawal (13.4) or periodic abstinence (13.9), a group largely using calendar rhythm.

Citation: Polis CB, Bradley SEK, Bankole A, Onda T, Croft T, Singh S. Typical-use contraceptive failure rates in 43 countries with demographic and health survey data: Summary of a detailed report. Contraception. 2016;94(1):11-17. doi:10.1016/j.contraception.2016.03.011.