ABSTRACT
Choosing a contraceptive method involves a variety of considerations, from personal predilections to the methods available and their cost. One common way to assess contraceptive methods is to list their individual advantages and disadvantages, or, in a more sophisticated fashion, to identify the dimensions along which they vary. A more systematic alternative to acceptability research that also looks at specific contraceptive methods and their attributes is research on subjective expected utility models. Contraceptive method choice is affected by four types of factors: contraceptive goals, contraceptive competence, contraceptive evaluation, and contraceptive access. The chapter considers the choice of rhythm, condoms, the pill and the intrauterine devices (IUD), and sterilization, proceeding from less effective to more effective methods. A wider variety of studies than those on pill and IUD acceptors provides relevant information on sterilization. Few of them directly compare sterilization acceptors with acceptors of other methods, but implications can nevertheless be drawn.
