Kensington Research Institute

Female Condom Study

The Female Condom Study was funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse from 1997 through 1999. During that time, 132 women drug abusers in Washington, DC were recruited to participate in the study by indigenous outreach workers. At the time this study was undertaken, the female condom was relatively new to the market and little research had been done to find out how receptive substance abusers and their sexual partners would be to using this device.

As part of their participation in the study, the women were interviewed about their drug use behaviors, sexual behaviors, HIV risk practices, and knowledge of and experience with the female condom. These interviews included the completion of a fairly lengthy quantitative questionnaire. In addition, qualitative interviews were conducted with a great many of the women, to capture information about relevant experiences, beliefs, and attitudes that did not lend themselves as well to the "fixed format" of the quantitative interviews.

When the data collection was complete, research team members provided the women with a standard "AIDS 101" type of intervention session, and supplemented this with a component specifically designed to inform them about the female condom. A female anatomical demonstration model was used to educate the women about their bodies (in particular about their sexual anatomy, about which their levels of knowledge tended to be rather low) and how to use the female condom properly, and then interventionists demonstrated the proper insertion and removal of the device and gave the study participants the opportunity to practice this technique on the demonstration model as well. In addition, other parts of the intervention incorporated role-playing exercises designed to help the women to identify and overcome potential barriers to introducing the use of the female condom with their sexual partners, negotiating its use with their partners, and de-escalating potentially-violent situations brought about by the request to use the female condom.

They were given several free female condoms to take home and use with their sexual partners, and offered additional free female condoms upon request whenever they saw the project’s outreach workers in their local community. The women were encouraged to use a female condom at least once before they returned for their follow-up interviews. Women were reinterviewed three months later, to find out how much their behaviors had changed after the intervention and to discover what they and their partners thought about using the female condoms.

Dr. Hugh Klein from KRI was the principal investigator of this project, was responsible for training the outreach and intervention workers for the Female Condom Study, as well as for monitoring their day-to-day work and conducting periodic "booster" training sessions. In addition, he supervised the project’s database, maintained the data, and conducted the analysis of the project data upon completion of the study.

We learned several things from this study. First, we found that the large majority of the women were, indeed, willing to use the female condom and see what it was like. Second, we discovered that the majority of their sexual partners were also willing to "give it a try" and see for themselves whether or not they liked having sex while using the female condom. Third, our research showed that, overall, women and their sexual partners reported having favorable experiences using the female condom. Many said that they found it to be fun, erotic, or kinky, and many also said that they liked the differentness of the sexual experience when the female condom was used. Importantly, we also discovered that the people most likely to use the female condom were those who were already predisposed toward using male condoms. For them, the female condom added another "weapon" to their "arsenal" to protect themselves from contracting sexual diseases, and that sexual protection rates rose when the female condom was introduced to these women.

Interested in more information about this study and its main findings?  If so, click here.