Cluster Randomized Controlled Trial Evaluation of a Gender Equity and Family Planning Intervention for Married Men and Couples in Rural India

This review provides an update of previous estimates of first-year probabilities of contraceptive failure for all methods of contraception available in the United States. Estimates are provided of probabilities of failure during typical use (which includes both incorrect and inconsistent use) and during perfect use (correct and consistent use). The difference between these two probabilities reveals the consequences of imperfect use; it depends both on how unforgiving of imperfect use a method is and on how hard it is to use that method perfectly. These revisions reflect new research on contraceptive failure both during perfect use and during typical use. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Intimate partner violence (IPV) is associated with HIV infection. We aimed to assess whether provision of a combination of IPV prevention and HIV services would reduce IPV and HIV incidence in individuals enrolled in the Rakai Community Cohort Study (RCCS), Rakai, Uganda.

We examined the effect of a peer-delivered educational intervention, the Malawi Male Motivator intervention, on couples' contraceptive uptake. We based the intervention design on the information-motivation-behavioral skills (IMB) model. In 2008 we recruited 400 men from Malawi's Mangochi province who reported not using any method of contraception. We randomized them into an intervention arm and a control arm, and administered surveys on contraceptive use at baseline and after the intervention. We also conducted in-depth interviews with a subset of intervention participants. After the intervention, contraceptive use increased significantly within both arms (P < .01), and this increase was significantly greater in the intervention arm than it was in the control arm (P < .01). Quantitative and qualitative data indicated that increased ease and frequency of communication within couples were the only significant predictors of uptake (P < .01). Our findings indicate that men facilitated contraceptive use for their partners. Although the IMB model does not fully explain our findings, our results show that the intervention's content and its training in communication skills are essential mechanisms for successfully enabling men to help couples use a contraceptive.