ACCEPTABILITY
The female condom has acceptance levels from 41 per cent to 95 per cent. Many studies have been conducted. In 2006 reviewers of 60 acceptability studies recommended that ‘research on the female condom must move away from assessing acceptability and focus on assessing effectiveness and improving impact in diverse settings’. Therefore UAFC Joint Programme aims at making female condoms accessible in diverse settings, Cameroon and Nigeria.
However, as with every other method of contraception and HIV prevention, female condoms are not universally acceptable. Concerns include promoting women’s promiscuity, fears about the condom becoming lost inside the vagina, or dislike of it when used. Giving women and men support to understand how to use the condom, and how to overcome any initial problems they may face, greatly improves acceptability.
Furthermore, more choice in types of female condoms should lead to higher acceptability rates. For example, acceptance studies of other types of female condoms show that married women and men respectively rated 94.8 per cent and 94.5 per cent of uses as comfortable or neutral in terms of comfort during sex. For more information on female condom variety, click here.
For further documentation see our Knowledge Base.
