The relationship between anxiety and contraception methods in adult women

ABSTRACT Anxiety disorders are significantly prevalent among adults in the United States, with steady increases over recent years. Women are nearly twice as likely to experience an anxiety disorder within their adult lifespan when compared to men. Few studies found have made attempts to explore causes for higher incidences of anxiety disorders in females. Until the etiology of anxiety in women is better understood, women could remain inadequately treated (Aquin et al., 2017; Goddard, 2017). This study was conducted using a non-experimental, descriptive correlational design to examine the relationship between methods of contraception and anxiety in adult women. Adult women who are genetically female, aged 18-52, and currently using any method of birth control or no birth control were recruited via e-mail invitation, exclusively to Texas Woman's University students, and via online social media platform Facebook (FB) with an active weblink that connected to the online consent and online survey software. Data was extracted from the online survey software into an electronic spreadsheet and placed into SPSS version 28 for statistical analysis. Descriptives, correlations, t-tests, ANOVA, and ANCOVA test were performed. A small amount of significance was found in relationships between anxiety levels in adult women and methods of contraception in one of three anxiety scales only, the GAD-7 (p = .02). However, mean anxiety scores were higher for all three anxiety scales for hormonal versus non-hormonal birth control users. These results could foster additional studies regarding hormonal influence on anxiety in women. The results could also encourage collaborative decision making between women and their providers when determining contraceptive methods.