Prescription contraception use: A cross-sectional population study of psychosocial determinants AUTHORS

GENERAL COMMENTS The current work performed by Molloy GJ and colleagues evaluates the key determinants of prescription contraceptive use (OCP and LARCs, separately). For such purpose, they followed a cross sectional population survey using a dataset constructed from a representative population based telephone survey of community designed to describe attitudes, knowledge and behavior relating to sexual health dwelling adults in the Republic of Ireland (RoI). They recruited a total of 1515 women aged between 18-45 years. As main results, they found a sociodemographic pattern on the use of prescription contraceptive being LARC users associated with lower income. Overall, 68% of women agreed with the statement that taking a break from long-term use of the contraceptive pill is a good idea while 37% of women agreed with the statement of OCP have dangerous side effects. This is a very interesting study describing determinants of prescription contraceptive use, although the cross-sectional studies have their limitations especially on drawing conclusions from findings. Bellow, there are some concerns and suggestions, mainly focused on methodology. And some questions that need to be clarified to correctly understand the results.