Breaking the Contraceptive Barrier: Techniques for Effective Contraceptive Consultations

ARHP is launching a new educational program, Breaking the Contraceptive Barrier: Techniques for Effective Contraceptive Consultations, to give health care professionals the tools and strategies to thoroughly and effectively discuss true pregnancy risk and contraceptive options with their patients. ARHP will produce a variety of resources for the patient and the provider help address these issues.

Expert Medical Advisory Committee Paul Blumenthal, MD, MPH Stanford University Medical Center Stanford, CA Linda Burdette, PA-C Central Cascade Women's Health Yakima, WA Linda Dominguez, RN-C, NP (chair) Southwest Women's Health Gynecology Group Planned Parenthood of New Mexico Albuquerque, NM Kathleen Hill-Besinque, Pharm.D., M.S.Ed. University of Southern California School of Pharmacy Los Angeles, CA Gary Kreps, PhD George Mason University Fairfax, VA Linda Prine, MD Reproductive Health Access Project and Beth Israel Residency in Urban Family Practice New York, NY Heather Reynolds, MSN, CNM, FACNM Yale University School of Nursing New Haven, CT Rameet Singh, MD Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center Baltimore, MD

You may request an ARHP speaker to present this medical education lecture at your event, including clinical conference or grand rounds session. Speaker honoraria and travel expenses will be covered by ARHP. To request a lecture, please click here to complete and submit the form.

For more information, please contact the program manager, Allison Tombros, MHS, at atombros@arhp.org or (202) 466-3825.

Background

The rates of unintended pregnancy in the United States are staggering: approximately half of all pregnancies are unintended.¹ There is also an overall lack of comprehensive sexuality education in the United States. As a result, many women do not fully understand how their menstrual cycles work, causing an underestimation of their true risk of pregnancy. This lack of understanding combines with a cultural unease among health professionals about discussing sexual topics, limited time for health care appointments, and communications complexities to keep women in the dark about their true risk of pregnancy. The goal of the Breaking the Contraceptive Barrier program is to provide health care professionals with tools and strategies to thoroughly and effectively discuss true pregnancy risk and contraceptive options with their patients.

Program Design and Educational Activities

The Breaking the Contraceptive Barrier program includes many carefully developed components to meet health care providers’ and patients’ needs for education. All program modules will be established based on the results of comprehensive needs assessment and expert clinical opinion. Program components include:

• PowerPoint slide module with talking points
• National and regional society meeting visiting faculty sessions
• Integration of content into CORE, ARHP’s on-line, open-access collection of peer-reviewed, evidence-based teaching materials
• Issue of ARHP’s CME monograph, Clinical Proceedings
• Spanish and English patient-education brochures

Curriculum Learning Objectives

At the conclusion of these sessions, participants will be able to:

• Recognize individual patient’s barriers to effectively preventing unintended pregnancy.
• Identify barriers that impede the ability of health care providers to effectively and successfully discuss contraception with patients.
• Examine effective strategies for overcoming the most common barriers to patients’ contraceptive success.
• Develop individualized strategies for provision of contraception to a patient.

Intended Audience and Accreditation

Educational offerings will be developed for health care providers (physicians, nurse practitioners, physician assistants, nurse midwives, pharmacists, and other professionals) and patients to help better understand the true risk of pregnancy and the scope of contraceptive options.

The curriculum/live sessions and Clinical Proceedings associated with this program will be accredited for continuing medical education, nursing contact hours, pharmacology, and pharmacist credits.

Funding

This project is funded through an unrestricted education grant from Duramed Research, Inc., a subsidiary of Barr Pharmaceuticals.

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1. Finer LB, Henshaw SK. Disparities in rates of unintended pregnancy in the United States, 1994 and 2001, Perspect Sex Reprod Health 2006;38:90-6.