Women's Contraceptive Perceptions, Beliefs, and Attitudes: An Integrative Review of Qualitative Research.
INTRODUCTION
Unintended pregnancy rates will remain high until researchers explore the lived experience of women's relationships with contraception. This integrative review examines the extant qualitative literature on women's contraception to illuminate common themes in women's perspectives through the lens of the feminist poststructuralist framework.


METHODS
A literature review of PubMed and CINAHL databases was completed for English-language studies conducted in the United States from January 2008 through September 2018 that qualitatively examined women's perceptions, beliefs, and attitudes regarding contraception. Reports, dissertations, mixed-methods research, and literature reviews were excluded. The sample, methods, and findings of 19 studies were reviewed. Themes were identified using the 5 major tenets of the feminist poststructuralist framework: discourse, power, language, subjectivity, and agency.


RESULTS
Themes of power imbalance between partners and health care providers; societal and communal discourses on femininity and motherhood; distrust of hormonal contraception; the ability to enhance personal agency through contraceptive decision making; and a need for open, patient-focused communication arose from the 19 studies included in the review.


DISCUSSION
Using a feminist poststructuralist framework to examine women's contraceptive perceptions illuminates and magnifies the many ways in which contraceptive beliefs and use are dependent on gender roles and power dynamics. Gaps in knowledge specific to older women and exploration of women's subjectivity should be addressed. Clinicians should evaluate the power structures inherent to their practice while providing woman-focused, evidence-based contraceptive education.
['Alspaugh|Amy|A|https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4427-4807', 'Barroso|Julie|J|', 'Reibel|Melody|M|', 'Phillips|Shannon|S|']
D002755:Choice Behavior D003267:Contraception D003268:Contraception Behavior D003270:Contraceptive Agents D005260:Female D007722:Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice D006801:Humans D010342:Patient Acceptance of Health Care D011247:Pregnancy D049168:Pregnancy, Unplanned D036301:Qualitative Research
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