Effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on contraceptive prescribing in general practice: a retrospective analysis of English prescribing data between 2019 and 2020

OBJECTIVES: This paper looks at how contraceptive prescribing by General Practices in England was affected by the COVID-19pandemic and lockdown. It compares English prescribing data in April – June 2019, the year before COVID19, and April–June 2020, the first three months of ‘lockdown’. DESIGN &...

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Autor principal: Walker, Susan H.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8918589/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35287763
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s40834-022-00169-w
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author Walker, Susan H.
author_facet Walker, Susan H.
author_sort Walker, Susan H.
collection PubMed
description OBJECTIVES: This paper looks at how contraceptive prescribing by General Practices in England was affected by the COVID-19pandemic and lockdown. It compares English prescribing data in April – June 2019, the year before COVID19, and April–June 2020, the first three months of ‘lockdown’. DESIGN & SETTING: This paper is based on retrospective analysis of the English Prescribing Dataset which reports monthly on prescribed items from English General Practices. Data on all forms of prescribed contraceptive methods were extracted using BNF codes, and total quantities tabulated by method. To reach the total number of months of contraception provided, total quantities were divided or multiplied according the frequency with which the method is taken per month or the numbers of months of contraception provided. RESULTS: Prescription of the combined oral contraceptive pill reduced by 22% during the period of lockdown compared to the same three months in 2019. Prescriptions of Progestogen-Only pills remained stable. Prescription of long-acting methods reduced, with the greatest reductions in implants (76% reduction from pre-lockdown levels), intra-uterine systems (79% reduction from pre-lockdown levels) and intrauterine devices (76% reduction from pre-lockdown levels). CONCLUSIONS: The disruption of face-to-face contraceptive consultations in General Practice during a COVID-19 ‘lockdown’ has resulted in a reduction in oestrogen –containing methods compared to progestogen-only methods, which require less face-to-face monitoring. Implant and intrauterine contraceptive device prescription reduced by three quarters over the first three months of lockdown, which has the potential to result in a rise in unintended pregnancies.
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spelling pubmed-89185892022-03-14 Effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on contraceptive prescribing in general practice: a retrospective analysis of English prescribing data between 2019 and 2020 Walker, Susan H. Contracept Reprod Med Research OBJECTIVES: This paper looks at how contraceptive prescribing by General Practices in England was affected by the COVID-19pandemic and lockdown. It compares English prescribing data in April – June 2019, the year before COVID19, and April–June 2020, the first three months of ‘lockdown’. DESIGN & SETTING: This paper is based on retrospective analysis of the English Prescribing Dataset which reports monthly on prescribed items from English General Practices. Data on all forms of prescribed contraceptive methods were extracted using BNF codes, and total quantities tabulated by method. To reach the total number of months of contraception provided, total quantities were divided or multiplied according the frequency with which the method is taken per month or the numbers of months of contraception provided. RESULTS: Prescription of the combined oral contraceptive pill reduced by 22% during the period of lockdown compared to the same three months in 2019. Prescriptions of Progestogen-Only pills remained stable. Prescription of long-acting methods reduced, with the greatest reductions in implants (76% reduction from pre-lockdown levels), intra-uterine systems (79% reduction from pre-lockdown levels) and intrauterine devices (76% reduction from pre-lockdown levels). CONCLUSIONS: The disruption of face-to-face contraceptive consultations in General Practice during a COVID-19 ‘lockdown’ has resulted in a reduction in oestrogen –containing methods compared to progestogen-only methods, which require less face-to-face monitoring. Implant and intrauterine contraceptive device prescription reduced by three quarters over the first three months of lockdown, which has the potential to result in a rise in unintended pregnancies. BioMed Central 2022-03-14 /pmc/articles/PMC8918589/ /pubmed/35287763 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s40834-022-00169-w Text en © The Author(s) 2022 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open AccessThis article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) . The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) ) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data.
spellingShingle Research
Walker, Susan H.
Effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on contraceptive prescribing in general practice: a retrospective analysis of English prescribing data between 2019 and 2020
title Effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on contraceptive prescribing in general practice: a retrospective analysis of English prescribing data between 2019 and 2020
title_full Effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on contraceptive prescribing in general practice: a retrospective analysis of English prescribing data between 2019 and 2020
title_fullStr Effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on contraceptive prescribing in general practice: a retrospective analysis of English prescribing data between 2019 and 2020
title_full_unstemmed Effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on contraceptive prescribing in general practice: a retrospective analysis of English prescribing data between 2019 and 2020
title_short Effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on contraceptive prescribing in general practice: a retrospective analysis of English prescribing data between 2019 and 2020
title_sort effect of the covid-19 pandemic on contraceptive prescribing in general practice: a retrospective analysis of english prescribing data between 2019 and 2020
topic Research
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8918589/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35287763
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s40834-022-00169-w
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