Condoms And Birth Control Pills Are Main Contraceptives Used In Malta, New Survey Finds
A new survey conducted has found that condoms and birth control pills are the main contraceptives used by women in Malta.
The data was collected by Francesca Fenech Conti, founder of the Women for Women foundation, mentored by Marie Briguglio and Andrea Dibben as part of her Master’s dissertation research in Gender, Society, and Culture.
The acquired data conveyed that only a third of respondents make use of the most effective contraceptive methods, such as birth control, with combined numbers making use of the least effective methods.
“A crucially important study by Fenech Conti which shows the abysmal situation related to family planning in Malta. Considering that her sample was skewed in terms of having double the number of tertiary-educated women than the general population, it is likely that the national situation is even direr,” dissertation mentor Dibben wrote on social media.
30% of participants chose condoms as their current preferred choice of contraceptive, making it the most favoured method outlined in the survey. 19% chose the withdrawal method.
When combined, 49% of respondents are not using the most reliable form of contraceptive.
Meanwhile, oral contraceptives such as birth control and intrauterine contraceptive devices, (IUD) are currently used by 24% and 8% of respondents respectively.
It also showed that only around half of the Maltese women who participated in the survey said that their pregnancies were actually planned.
Furthermore, 5.5% of respondents said that they had an abortion at some point in their lives, totaling around 140 abortions.
Over 3,000 people participated in the online dissertation survey which was conducted earlier in 2022, with 2,552 respondents being Maltese women of a higher level of education.
In the survey, participants were also asked a number of basic questions, such as their relationship status, their level of education, employment, income, and which location they inhabit in Malta.
What do you make of these numbers?
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