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Teenage girls using long-term contraceptive implants are 'less likely to use condoms than those on the Pill'

Intrauterine devices and implants are long-acting reversible contraception
LARC is known to be the most effective birth control methods
Girls using LARC are 60% less likely to use condoms, CDC experts warn
That leaves them vulnerable to catching sexually transmitted infections
Teenagers using birth control pill, patch and ring use condoms more often

Published: 20:56 GMT, 14 March 2016 | Updated: 20:59 GMT, 14 March 2016

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Teenage girls who use the most effective methods of birth control are less likely to use condoms - leaving them vulnerable to sexually transmitted infections, experts warn.

High school girls with intrauterine devices and implants use condoms less frequently than their peers who are taking daily oral birth control pills.

Intrauterine and implantable devices are known as long-acting reversible contraception.

They are 'highly effective' in reducing pregnancy, and public health officials say they should be the first-line birth control options for teenagers.

Yet, experts caution that more effort must be placed on instructing girls using long-term birth control methods of the risks associated with not using condoms.

Grls using intrauterine devices (pictured) and implants - known as long-acting reversible contraception - are 60 per cent less likely to use condoms than those taking oral birth control pills, CDC experts warn

Riley Steiner, a researcher at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, told Reuters: 'The findings highlight a need for strategies to increase condom use among all users of highly and moderately effective contraceptive methods... to prevent STIs.'

For every 100 women using long-acting reversible contraception (LARC), there is only one unplanned pregnancy per year, according to the American college of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.

In contrast, there are six to nine unplanned pregnancies among 100 women using the Depo-Provera shot, birth control pills, rings or patches.

For the study, the team of scientists utilized data from a 2013 survey of US high school students.

There were 2,288 sexually active girls participating in the survey.

Of that group, nearly two per cent used LARC and 22 per cent took birth control pills.

Young women using highly effective [long-term birth control] methods may be less likely to use condoms because they don’t perceive a need for additional protection from pregnancy

Riley Steiner, of the CDC

Another 41 per cent used condoms, close to 12 per cent used withdrawal or other methods, nearly 16 per cent used no contraceptive method and about six per cent used the shot, patch or ring.

Additionally, two per cent didn't know which method they used.

The scientists found that LARC users were nearly 60 per cent less likely to use condoms than girls taking birth control pills.

However, there was no significant difference in condom use between those taking the shot, patch or ring and those using LARC.

It's unclear why girls on LARC are less likely to use condoms, according to Ms Steiner.

She said: 'Young women using highly effective LARC methods may be less likely to use condoms because they don’t perceive a need for additional protection from pregnancy.

'It’s also possible that providers are more likely to offer LARC to adolescents who rarely or never use condoms.'

LARC users also were more likely to have two or more sexual partners in the past three months - and four or more lifetime sexual partners - than those using the shot, ring, patch and pills.

Refusing to use condoms makes girls with LARC more vulnerable to sexually transmitted infections. Scientists caution that girls need to be better informed as to why condom use is important

Dr Julia Potter, of Boston Medical Center, who co-wrote an editorial accompanying the study in the journal JAMA Pediatrics, wrote: 'The important takeaway message from this story is that we need to be giving girls the right message of why condom use is important.'

Yet, the experts caution that the results should not deter teenage LARC use.

Instead, MS Steiner said, the study should 'inform how STI prevention is addressed within the context of adolescent LARC scale-up.'

Dr Potter added that further research on why girls using LARC aren't using condoms as much is needed.