NATURAL FAMILY-PLANNING EFFECTIVENESS - EVALUATING PUBLISHED REPORTS

Objective: To equip the reader with the tools necessary to evaluate st udies of natural family planning (NFP) effectiveness found in the lite rature and to make recommendations for future NFP effectiveness studie s. Design: Current standards to evaluate contraceptive method effectiv eness are reviewed. A framework for evaluating reports on NFP is prese nted. Results: Most NFP studies found in the literature are flawed in design and do not calculate pregnancy rates correctly. The results fro m the few well-designed studies are presented. Discussion: Many factor s influence NFP effectiveness, and these factors must be considered wh en evaluating published studies and designing future studies.