Effect of baseline menstrual bleeding pattern on copper intrauterine device continuation.

What Was Tested

This observational study looks at Copper (Supplement).

Their objective was to assess if there was an association between baseline menstrual bleeding pattern prior to intrauterine device insertion and discontinuation rate at 12 months among study participants who chose copper intrauterine device at baseline.

Why It Was Studied

Heavy menstrual bleeding is a leading cause of copper intrauterine device discontinuation.

Who Took Part

The study group was 12 participants.

The age groups tagged for this paper are teenagers, young adults, adults and middle-aged adults, women only.

Included in their study were participants who chose copper intrauterine device for contraception and for whom method continuation data at 12 months were available.

Prior to contraception initiation, participants were asked to qualify their menstrual bleeding over the past year as: light, moderate, moderately heavy, or heavy.

How the Study Was Run

Light bleeding corresponded to using ≤10 pads/tampons per period.

Moderate, moderately heavy, and heavy bleeding corresponded to 11-20 pads/tampons, 21-30 pads/tampons, and >30 pads/tampons per period, respectively.

Subjects were then categorized into either a "heavy" baseline group (those reporting moderately heavy or heavy bleeding at baseline), or a "not heavy" group (those reporting light or moderate bleeding).

What Was Measured

Topics PubMed links to this paper include Cohort Studies, Intrauterine Devices, Copper, Menorrhagia, Menstruation, Patient Preference and Proportional Hazards Models.

Author keywords: copper intrauterine device, discontinuation and heavy menstrual bleeding.

What This Means in Plain Language

This is an observational study of Copper (Supplement) in 12 participants.

With fewer than 40 people, it is a small study, so it is better read as an early signal for further research than as a settled answer.

The abstract goes on to report its results in about 6 sentences; this page does not restate them, so read the paper for the findings and their limits.

The publication is from 2018 (American journal of obstetrics and gynecology), a journal based in United States.

More context: the Copper (Supplement) compound page, all human trials.