Contraception

Trial Purpose

The INAS-SCORE study was designed as an international, prospective, controlled, non-interventional cohort study. The study was started in Europe and was extended to the US after the launch of the new regimen. New users of an OC (starters or switchers) are accrued by a network of prescribing physicians. Even in the event of high drop-out rates, a 3 to 5-year follow-up of 50,000 women should be sufficient to document about 150,000 women-years. Baseline and follow-up information are collected via a self-administered questionnaire. All self-reported clinical outcomes of interest will be validated via health care professionals. Classification of reported outcomes as "confirmed" or "unconfirmed" will be checked via blinded, independent adjudication. A multifaceted 4-level follow-up procedure proved to ensure low loss to follow-up rates.
The main clinical outcomes of interest for the short and long-term follow-up are cardiovascular events, primarily deep venous thrombosis, pulmonary embolism, acute myocardial infarction, and cerebrovascular accidents.

-  Women who received a new prescription for a combined oral contraceptive. 
 -  Participating physicians discussed the study with the subjects only after a COC had been prescribed. This ensured that study participation in the study was not considered a requirement for treatment. All women who were eligible for recruitment were asked to participate.
 -  Participating women could be starters (first-ever users of COCs), switchers (users who switched from one COC to another ‒ without an intake break or an intake break of less than 4 weeks), or restarters (users who restarted a COC after an intake break of at least 4 weeks, i.e. at least one complete cycle).

-  women who are not cooperative
 -  women with a language barrier

More specific inclusion or exclusion criteria were not made because of the non-interference approach of the study design.