CHOICES AND CHANGES IN CONTRACEPTIVE BEHAVIOR - THE ROLE OF INFORMATION-SOURCES

One of the factors contributing to the fact that contraceptive behavio ur in The Netherlands is more effective then in most other countries s eems to be that Dutch women are very well informed about all aspects o f contraception as a result of formal and informal education at school , in the families and by the media. In a population based survey more than 4500 women were followed during 5 consecutive years by means of a yearly questionnaire about contraceptive behaviour, choices and trend s. With regards to information sources it is concluded that the genera l practitioner, who plays a central role as provider of contraceptive services, is viewed as the most important and reliable source of infor mation. On the other hand Dutch women in general view their contracept ive choices as their own, they do not feel that they are very much inf luenced by the opinions of their physicians, who in general do not hav e a normative, patronizing and/or moralizing attitude regarding sexual ity and contraception.