Demographic and Health Surveys Methodology - Measure DHS

REASONS FOR DISCONTINUING CONTRACEPTIONStatistics: Percent Distribution of Discontinued Episodes of Contraceptive Use, by Reasonfor Discontinuation, According to Specific MethodThe distributions, by reason of discontinuation, are based on episodes of use of particular methods. Anindividual woman may contribute more than one episode to the calculation.DefinitionA. Coverage:1. Population base.2. Episodes of contraceptive use that were discontinued for all interviewed women who used acontraceptive method in the five years preceding the survey.3. Time period: Users who discontinued an episode of use 0–59 months before the interview.B. Numerator: Number of episodes of use that were discontinued, by reason of discontinuation,according to contraceptive method and for all methods together.C. Denominator: Total number of episodes of use that were discontinued, according to contraceptivemethod and for all methods.CalculationA. In the DHS standard recode file, the data for contraceptive discontinuation rates come from thereproductive calendar. The reproductive calendar in the questionnaire consists of two or morecolumns of boxes where each box represents a specific calendar month. The reproductivecalendar usually begins with the first month of the fifth calendar year before the date of the startof fieldwork. For example, if the fieldwork began in July 2000, the calendar would start inJanuary 1995. In the first column, episodes of use of contraception are indicated by placing amethod code in the boxes that correspond to the calendar months when used. Pregnancies, births,and non-live birth terminations are also represented in this column by placing the correspondingcodes in the appropriate months. Months with no codes are those in which the woman did not usecontraception, was not pregnant, did not give birth or did not have a fetal loss or stillbirth. In thesecond column, the reason for contraceptive discontinuation is noted in the box that correspondsto the month of discontinuation.B. In the standard recode file, the reproductive calendar is represented by character strings of fixedlength. Each position within the character string represents a calendar month. Thus the thirdposition may represent March 1995, while the fifth position represents May 1995. Each positionis examined in chronological order for a contraceptive code. The first occurrence of acontraceptive code following a position without that code indicates the start of a new episode ofuse. Subsequent positions are examined until a different code is found. An episode of use ends ifthe following position does not have the same contraceptive code (a discontinuation). Theepisodes are then tabulated by type of ending for each type of contraceptive method and for allmethods combined.Guide to DHS Statistics 58 Updated September 2006