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HERO ID
7122647
Reference Type
Journal Article
Title
"We have to be mythbusters": Clinician attitudes about the legitimacy of patient concerns and dissatisfaction with contraception
Author(s)
Stevens, LM; ,
Year
2018
Is Peer Reviewed?
1
Journal
Social Science & Medicine
ISSN:
0277-9536
EISSN:
1873-5347
Publisher
PERGAMON-ELSEVIER SCIENCE LTD
Location
OXFORD
Page Numbers
145-152
PMID
30031980
DOI
10.1016/j.socscimed.2018.07.020
Web of Science Id
WOS:000442056900016
Abstract
Although women in the United States use birth control at high rates, they also discontinue it at high rates, often citing dissatisfaction and side effects. At the same time, research shows that clinicians often neglect to discuss or discursively downplay the importance of side effects in contraceptive counseling. Scholars have yet to consider how clinicians' beliefs about the legitimacy of patient concerns and dissatisfaction may undergird these patterns. This study uses in-depth interviews with reproductive healthcare providers (N = 24) to examine their attitudes about common complaints regarding hormonal birth control. I identify how their reliance on formal medical knowledge, including evidence-based models, can lead them to frame patients' experiences or concerns about side effects as "myths" or "misconceptions" to be corrected rather than legitimized. I also describe a pattern of providers portraying negative side effects as normal to contraception and therefore encouraging patients to "stick with" methods despite dissatisfaction. Finally, I explore how these themes manifest in racialized and classed discourses about patient populations. I discuss the potential cumulative impact of these attitudes - if providers do carry them into clinical practice, they can have the effect of minimizing patient concerns and dissatisfaction, while steering women towards more effective methods of contraception.
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