Objectives Contraception remains a key topic in societal and political debates. Since most research focuses on female adolescents, there is a gap in understanding adult perspectives and sex differences in contraceptive responsibility, satisfaction, and knowledge. Theater-based research, which fosters engagement and open discussions, offers a novel approach to exploring these perspectives while also enhancing contraceptive awareness. This study explores adults’ contraceptive views using a theater-based approach, while also examining sex differences in contraceptive satisfaction, responsibility, and knowledge.

Study Design Conducted at a three-day Dutch music festival, this study included a survey, an interactive contraceptive knowledge quiz, and open-ended participant writings on the wall. The sample comprised n=1,024 participants (66.1% female, mean age 28.1).

Results Thematic analysis of participants’ writings revealed six themes around contraceptive views: side effects, resistance to hormones, fallibility of contraception, shared responsibility, information needs, and dismissive contraceptive counseling. Survey data showed that women reported significantly lower satisfaction with contraception (β= -0.61; 95% CI= -0.87; -0.35), higher sense of responsibility (β = 1.01; 95% CI= 0.74; 1.27), and higher levels of contraceptive knowledge (β= 16.79; 95% CI= 10.83; 22.75) than men.

Conclusion Despite predominantly negative views related to the burden and fallibility of contraception, reported satisfaction was relatively high. Nevertheless, women were less satisfied, felt more responsible, and were more knowledgeable than men. These findings highlight the need to improve comprehensive sexuality education and contraceptive counselling, focusing on people beyond formal education, while acknowledging people’s lived experiences and actively engaging men.

Implications Using an innovative theater-based approach, this study’s findings emphasize the need to improve comprehensive sexuality education and contraceptive counselling by acknowledging people’s lived experiences and actively engaging men. Further research could examine inclusive approaches to reaching and informing people about contraception, also beyond their formal education.

The authors have declared no competing interest.

This study was made possible by grants from the Netherlands Organization for Health Research and Development (ZonMw) Unintended Pregnancy Research Program, grant number 554002008 (Project UP), 554002012 (BluePrint), 554002006 (RISE UP), 554001014 (Samen Groeien 010), the Vital Cities and Citizens initiative and the Erasmus School of Social and Behavioral Sciences Dragons Den 2023. Hanan El Marroun was supported by the Stichting Volksbond Rotterdam, the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO) Aspasia grant (No. 015.016.056), and the European Unions Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Program (HappyMums, Grant agreement 101057390). Hilmar Bijma is supported by GGD-GHOR Netherlands (the Dutch national Association of GGDs (Regional Public Health Services) and GHOR (Regional Medical Emergency Preparedness and Planning)). The funders had no role in the design and conduct of the study or the writing of this article.

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The Ethics Review Committee of Erasmus School of Social and Behavioral Sciences gave ethical approval for this work.

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