Patient and public consultation

17th November, 2022.  GP researchers Dr. Rebecca L. Mawson and Dr. Emma Linton had an opportunity to directly hear from women of diverse backgrounds about their views on contraceptives. The discussion highlighted issues related to access and delivery of contraception services, as well as those that are socio-cultural and historical. 

"Thank you to the organisers. It was a good, insightful and educational event. I learnt  a lot. Hopefully, I am going to start the conversation in my community to get their views" (PPI member).

Opinions about contraception amongst ethnic minority populations.

Funded by the Royal College of General Practitioners, Scientific Foundation Board.

Providing women with choices about contraception improves their health and the health of any children they have. We know that women from ethnic minorities can find it more difficult to access contraceptive services in the UK but we do not know why this is. There is not much research looking into what women from ethnic minorities think of different contraceptive options and what they would like family planning services to provide. We would like to study this so that we can provide a better, and more equal, contraceptive service.

We will recruit and train female community researchers from Black African, Black Caribbean and South Asian backgrounds.  The community researchers will organise groups from their own backgrounds, to come together to talk confidentially about contraception. We will ask them where, if anywhere, they get contraception from (GPs, clinics, pharmacies, etc.) and if they would like this to change. We will interview women individually if they do not want to be in a group. Interpreters will be used so that we can include women who do not speak English.

The results of this study will be used to identify any differences in opinions about contraception, or the way that it is provided, amongst different ethnic group members. This will help us understand any difficulties faced by women from ethnic minorities when trying to access family planning services and how we can overcome these difficulties. In future research, we plan to use our results to work with women to develop a method to improve services.