Iseyemi A, et al. – The relationship of low socioeconomic status as an independent risk factor for unintended pregnancy is assessed in this study. The outcome of this study suggests low socioeconomic status is related to a higher incidence of unintended pregnancy despite the removal of cost barriers.

Methods

• For this study, they used data from the Contraceptive CHOICE project.
• In this study, a secondary analysis was conducted on this data.
• Between 2007 and 2011, total 9,256 participants were selected and followed for up to 3 years.
• The primary outcome of interest was unintended pregnancy; the primary exposure variable was low socioeconomic status, characterized as self–report of either receiving public assistance or having difficulty paying for basic necessities.
• Four contraceptive groups were assessed: long–acting reversible contraceptive method (hormonal or copper intrauterine device or subdermal implant); depot medroxyprogesterone acetate injection; oral contraceptive pills, a transdermal patch, or a vaginal ring; or other or no method.
• Confounders were adjusted for in the multivariable Cox proportional hazard model to assess the impact of socioeconomic status on risk of unintended pregnancy.

Results

• In this study, participants with low socioeconomic status experienced 515 unintended pregnancies within 14,001 women–years of follow–up (3.68/100 women–years; 95% CI 3.37–4.01) compared with 200 unintended pregnancies within 10,296 women–years (1.94/100 women–years; 95% CI 1.68–2.23) among participants without low socioeconomic status.
• Women with low socioeconomic status were more likely to have an unintended pregnancy (unadjusted hazard ratio [HR] 1.8, 95% CI 1.5–2.2).
• After adjusting for age, education level, insurance status, and history of unintended pregnancy, low socioeconomic status was related to an increased risk of unintended pregnancy (adjusted HR 1.4, 95% CI 1.1–1.7).