Interest in natural family planning among female family practice patients

Although modern methods of natural family planning (NFP) are effective both to avoid and to achieve pregnancy, relatively few women use these methods. It is not known whether this is due primarily to lack of interest or to other factors. We therefore explored the level of interest in NFP among female family practice patients.

We mailed information about NFP to 400 female patients between ages 21 and 42 and conducted follow-up interviews by telephone. We excluded 162 women for whom we could not obtain accurate addresses or phone numbers, 68 women we could not reach by telephone, 67 women who were not currently at risk of pregnancy, and 15 women for other reasons. Twenty-eight women refused to participate in the study. Sixty women completed telephone interviews.

Forty-three percent of respondents (n = 60) were interested in learning more about NFP, 24% said they were likely to use NFP to avoid pregnancy, and 32% were likely to use NFP to achieve pregnancy. Younger women and women who were Christian but not Catholic and not of a major Protestant denomination were more interested in NFP.

Some female family practice patients are interested in learning and using NFP.