Graduation Year

2018

Document Type

Thesis

Degree

M.A.

Degree Name

Master of Arts (M.A.)

Degree Granting Department

Child and Family Studies

Major Professor

Andrew Samaha, Ph.D.

Committee Member

Sarah E. Bloom, Ph.D.

Committee Member

Kimberly Crosland, Ph.D.

Keywords

birth control, money, selfie, stress

Abstract

There is a high prevalence of nonuse and imperfect use of oral contraceptives (OCs) that can result in multiple consequences, one of which is unintended pregnancy. Deposit contracting may be promising for increasing OC adherence, however, there is little research testing deposit contracting on oral contraceptive adherence. In addition, studies have concluded that young women with elevated stress symptoms are at risk of contraceptive nonuse. Purposes of this thesis were to evaluate effects of deposit contracting on OC use for women, and the relation of stress to timely pill consumption. In addition, reliability was measured between the different measurements used to determine OC usage in the study. We recruited 10 college-aged female participants who were distributed into three cohorts. During baseline phase, participant’s deposit returns were based on submitting daily “selfies” (optional), weekly OC blister packs photos, weekly completed PSS-4 forms, and weekly completed pill diaries on time. During the deposit contracting phase, participants were to continue submitting all the weekly reports, but the deposit returns were contingent also upon submitting daily “selfies” on time. Results of latency of pill consumption and percentage of imperfect use showed that deposit contracting was effective in decreasing percentages of OC imperfect use, decreasing the latency in pill consumption, and increasing OC adherence for participants with stress. Results of the study also indicated that reliability was mixed between the different form of data collections on OC adherence.

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