NuvaRing® improves quality of life-results from a clinical
experience program in Spain
I Lete Lasa
Hospital Santiago Apóstol, Gynecology Department, Vitoria,
Spain
Background The choice, effectiveness and acceptability of
a method of contraception largely depends on how that particular method affects
users’ general quality of life (QoL) in addition to their sex lives.
Objective To evaluate whether the use of NuvaRing®, the
monthly contraceptive ring, affected users’ QoL.
Methods A total of 896 Spanish women attending their
family planning centre, hospital or private centre to request contraceptive
advice were recruited to this 6-month observational, multi-centre, prospective,
open study. On study completion, women were asked whether their QoL had improved,
taking into account the method of contraception they were using beforehand.
Women with improved QoL were then asked to choose from the following options to
indicate which aspect(s) had contributed the most to the improvement: a greater
feeling of safety, a feeling that they had greater control of their life, a more
discreet method, an improvement in their state of physical and mental health, an
improvement in sex, an improvement in family relationships, greater enjoyment
from life, all of the above and/or other aspects.
Results Of the 805 women (mean age = 29 ± 6 years) who
started using NuvaRing®, 722 (90%) completed cycle 3 and 595 (74%) completed
cycle 6. Overall, 80% of women said that their QoL had improved after using the
ring. The reasons that contributed most to the improvement were “a greater
feeling of safety” followed by “a greater feeling of control of their
lives”. Women switching to NuvaRing® from another hormonal contraceptive (HC)
method found the ring to be more discreet than those who had previously not used
HC (9.4% vs 5.3%, respectively). Similarly, “an improvement in sex”
was cited by more women who were new to HC compared with those who had switched
from another HC method (13.2% vs 4.2%, respectively), as one of the most
important reasons for their improved QoL.
Conclusions The results show that NuvaRing® improved
women’s QoL, particularly by increasing women’s feeling of safety and of being
in control of their lives.