Project: Criteria for contraception use and nonuse and predictable factors for safe contraception use in Latvia.
FINAL REPORT
Development of survey was started in September of 2013 by initial determination of basic factors which influence forming perception of contraception.
Six basic factors were determined:
1. awareness of contraception;
2. obtaining information about contraception in a family;
3. obtaining information about contraception at school;
4. communication on the contraception subject with friends;
5. conversations about contraception with a partner;
6. attitude towards contraception in the context of religion.
An affirmative form was chosen for survey articles, and it allowed application of a united Likert scale with differentiated assessments to all the articles:
3 – agree;
2 – partially agree;
1 – partially disagree;
0 – disagree.
As the next step, from 21September 2013 till 31 December 2013, the first version of survey in Latvian and Russian with 178 articles was created. Survey articles were translated into Russian by Anna Gogele.
An informative block identifying the following characteristics of respondents was included in survey:
1. age;
2. gender;
3. place of residence;
4. education;
5. profession,
6. religion;
7. family status;
8. and questions what contraceptives are familiar to respondents and used by them.
Apparent validity check was carried out by interviewing eight representatives of the target audience – 2 women and 2 men from the Latvian target audience and 2 women and 2 men from the Russian-speaking target audience. As a result 13 articles were excluded from the survey, because they were defined as difficult to understand. Also reaction index of articles was determined which resulted with exclusion of 4 more articles from the survey.
For content validity check 2 contraception experts were invited: Dr. Dita Baumane-Auza and Dr. Inara Pundure, who recognized 145 articles as appropriate and 14 – as inappropriate.
As a result of apparent and content validity check 145 articles remained.
42 Latvian–speaking and 36 Russian–speaking respondents were surveyed for the first check. Checks according to according to psychometric principles were carried out (reliability check calculating Cronbach’s Alpha coefficient; determining conformity to normal distribution according to Kolmogorov–Smirnov Z criterion; calculation of descriptive statistics).
In November 2013, after summarizing the results of examination, 50 articles were excluded from the survey and the first decision to create a survey consisting of 95 articles was accepted.
From January 1 to March 12 2014, the second survey of 156 Latvian–speaking and 97 Russian–speaking respondents was carried out.
From March 20 to April 15 2014, results of the secondary survey were summarized.
From 20 April to 20 June, taking in account the obtained results, the secondary survey check according to psychometric principles was carried out (reliability check calculating Cronbach’s Alpha coefficient; determining conformity to normal distribution according to Kolmogorov–Smirnov Z criterion; calculation of descriptive statistics).
Since the number of respondents speaking only in Latvian and Russian in the secondary survey was more than 200 (253 respondents), there was a possibility to carry out validity check with factor analysis which, in its turn, allowed checking the distribution of articles by scales.
After the secondary check of the survey results according to psychometric principles, 60 more articles were excluded from the survey and the second decision to create a survey consisting of 55 articles was accepted.
From July 15 to December 20 2014, the final survey was carried out. Data collection and entry was performed by Aris Andersons.
In total, 3102 respondents from Riga region and 6 main cities of Latvia – Daugavpils, Liepaja, Ventspils, Jekabpils, Valmiera and Riga, were interviewed. However, 387 questionnaires which were filled in inadequately or incompletely were recognized as inappropriate. Thus 2715 questionnaires were used for data processing.
Data collection lasted from August 2014 to 19 January 2015. Data processing and analysis lasted from 19 January to 31March 2015.
The survey was carried out by:
Dita Baumane-Auza, Dr.
Marija Vaciete, PhD.
Vitauts Virbicks, PhD.
Irina Simonenkova, PhD.
Olena Fjodorova, PhD.
Anna Dobicina, Dr.
Juliana Gabne, Dr.
Inara Pundure, Dr.
Eduards Osins, Dr.
Reinis Osins, Dr.
Inguna Karklina, Dr.
Erika Urtane, Dr.
Luiza Roman, Dr.
Kristina Dabola, Chair-person of the Society EKSAVI
The Vidzeme University
The main results of the survey are connected to conclusions in the following blocks of questions:
1. Recommendations of health care professionals (doctors) play a significant role in choice of contraception, as evidenced by statistically significant indicators.
2. The education system to a great extent forms the basic stance towards contraception in one’s perception, as evidenced by statistically significant indicators.
3. The choice of contraception methods is determined by the price of contraceptives, as evidenced by statistically significant indicators.
4. In communication on contraception issues a negative attitude towards hormonal contraception is being formed in a wider circle of people, as evidenced by statistically significant indicators.
5. Communication within personal partnership facilitates more positive perception of contraception, as evidenced by statistically significant indicators.
6. On its turn, communication in wider circles of family and friends facilitates more negative attitude towards hormonal contraception.
7. There are no statistically significant differences in any of indicators between the Russian and the Latvian audience.
8. Respondents are not sufficiently informed about types of hormonal contraception, as evidenced by statistically significant indicators.
The results of the research due to be published at the ESC Congress, in Basel, in 2016; in the ESC journal, as well as in the Conference in Latvia, in 2016.