Back to Annual Meeting Page		American Public Health Association 133rd Annual Meeting & Exposition December 10-14, 2005 Philadelphia, PA

Abstract #108208

Irit Sinai, PhD and Marcos Arevalo, MD, MPH. Institute for Reproductive Health, Georgetown University School of Medicine, 4301 Connecticut Ave., NW, Washington, DC 20008, 202-687-1392, arevalom@georgetown.edu

The TwoDay Method is a new fertility awareness-based method of family planning that relies on noting the presence or absence of cervical secretions of any type to identify the fertile days each cycle. To prevent pregnancy, users are counseled to avoid unprotected intercourse when they have noticed secretions that day or the previous day. A clinical study followed 450 women in Guatemala, Peru, and the Philippines for up to 13 cycles of method use, and found a one-year failure rate of 3.5 with correct use (results reported elsewhere). At the completion of the efficacy study, 188 women in Guatemala and Peru who expressed an interest in continued use of the method agreed to be interviewed periodically for two additional years. Data collection for this effort will be completed in August 2005, when the last participant will complete three full years of method use – the efficacy study plus two more years of this long term use study. Results from the first 18 months of the long term use study indicate that the method is effective and acceptable for long-term users. Of 188 women entering the long-term phase (following the efficacy study), 74% were still using the method, with only 11 unplanned pregnancies. Most women who stopped using the method did so because of changed fertility intentions. The presentation will include final 24-month results of the long-term use of the TwoDay Method, including failure rates, continuation rates, reasons for continuation, and acceptability of the method to users and their partners.

Learning Objectives: At the conclusion of this presentation participants will know

(
• the long-term efficacy figures of the TwoDay Method, a new fertility awareness-based method of family planning; (
• the long-term continuation rates of the method; and (
• the acceptability of the method to long-term users and their partners.

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

I wish to disclose that I have NO financial interests or other relationship with the manufactures of commercial products, suppliers of commercial services or commercial supporters.

Recorded presentation