Impact of coronavirus disease 2019 on contraception use in France

To limit the spread of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID 19), sanitary restrictions have been established since March 2020 in France. These restrictions and the waves of contamination may have had consequences on the use of health products in general, and on the use of contraceptives in particular. We aimed to assess the impact of COVID 19 pandemic from March 16th 2020 to April 30th 2021 in France on reimbursed contraceptives. We analyzed data from the French national health insurance database (SNDS) by extracting all oral contraception (OC), emergency contraception (EC), levonorgestrel-intrauterine system (LNG-IUS), copper-intrauterine device (C-IUD) and contraceptive implant dispensations in 2018, 2019, 2020 and to April 30th 2021. We computed the expected use of contraceptives in 2020 and 2021 without pandemic and its associated sanitary restrictions, by taking the annual trend into account. We assessed the evolution of dispensations by type of contraceptive and by age-groups (≤25 years old, between 25 and 35 and >35 years old) between observed and expected dispensations. After 15 months of pandemic, a decrease of all reimbursed contraceptives dispensations had been estimated, compared with what was expected: –2.0% for OC, –5.0% for EC, –9.5% for LNG-IUS, –8.6% for C-IUD, –16.4% for implant. Women under 25 years old were the most impacted by the decrease. This national study showed that the impact of the COVID 19 crisis was global on all reimbursed contraceptives, with different levels of impact depending on the type of contraceptive, the age-group and the severity of the restriction. OC dispensing decreased marginally compared with expectations. The decrease in long-acting contraceptives dispensing was more pronounced, especially for the implant. These results call for continued monitoring of contraceptive use over the long term and for prioritizing access to sexual health services during crises, especially among the youngest women who were most affected in this study.