Abstract
Objectives Knowledge gaps in contraceptives led to their low adoption rates and misuse in young
women. The existing online contraception decision aids missed certain decision factors
deemed important to college-aged women and did not consistently provide clear and
accurate recommendations. To address the needs of young women and the limitations
in current tools, we developed a prototype contraception decision aid, My Contraceptive
Choice (MCC). This article reports an evaluation study of the MCC tool.
Methods We conducted a mixed methods study: (1) to assess MCC's usefulness and usability
through an online survey and a follow-up focus group, and (2) to provide a quantitative
examination on the recommendations generated by MCC to match with individual user's
needs and preferences through simulated test cases.
Results The survey of 150 college-aged women showed very positive responses (reflecting personal
preferences, 75%; helping people learn more about birth control methods, 88%; easy
to navigate, 91%). The follow-up focus group of 10 survey participants reconfirmed
most findings from the survey and provided detailed feedback on certain system functions,
such as the inclusion of an important decision factor of weight gain and the efficient
hybrid design to integrate the customized recommendations with the side-by-side comparison
of all contraceptive methods. Simulated test cases showed that the MCC tool achieved
an accuracy of 72% in addressing user preferences and an accuracy of 72% in satisfying
user needs, which were significantly better than the existing Planned Parenthood tool.
Conclusion The initial evaluations suggest that the MCC tool has achieved good levels of usefulness,
usability, and appropriate recommendations to address user needs and preferences.
Future research is required to assess the performance of the MCC tool in naturalistic
settings and to examine the generalizability of the findings to other user populations.
Keywords
contraception - decision making - weight gain - women - focus group - survey
