TABLE 1.
Percentage distribution of women veterans aged 20–45, by selected characteristics, according to perceived susceptibility to pregnancy, Examining Contraceptive Use and Unmet Needs study, 2014–2016
| Characteristic | All (N=969) | Perceived susceptibility to pregnancy |
|
|---|---|---|---|
| Low (N=392) | High (N=577) | ||
| Age | ** | ||
| 20–29 | 28.6 | 25.0 | 31.0 |
| 30–34 | 34.3 | 32.1 | 35.7 |
| 35–39 | 23.6 | 26.0 | 22.0 |
| 40–45 | 13.5 | 6.8 | 11.3 |
| Race/ethnicity | |||
| White | 51.8 | 51.0 | 52.3 |
| Black | 27.6 | 28.6 | 26.9 |
| Hispanic | 13.4 | 12.8 | 13.9 |
| Other | 7.2 | 7.7 | 6.9 |
| Marital status‡ | * | ||
| Never married | 25.2 | 28.6 | 22.9 |
| Married/living with partner | 47.5 | 43.0 | 50.6 |
| Divorced/separated/widowed | 27.3 | 28.4 | 26.5 |
| Has college degree | |||
| Yes | 52.6 | 52.6 | 52.7 |
| No | 47.4 | 47.4 | 47.3 |
| Religion‡ | |||
| Protestant | 12.7 | 12.5 | 12.9 |
| Catholic | 13.5 | 12.0 | 14.4 |
| Other Christian | 41.1 | 44.5 | 39.0 |
| Other | 13.0 | 10.7 | 14.6 |
| None | 19.7 | 20.5 | 19.1 |
| Annual household income (US$)‡ | |||
| 0–19,999 | 23.0 | 23.8 | 22.5 |
| 20,000–59,999 | 54.3 | 55.0 | 53.9 |
| ≥60,000 | 22.7 | 21.2 | 23.7 |
| Ever pregnant‡ | *** | ||
| Yes | 71.7 | 62.8 | 77.6 |
| No | 28.3 | 37.2 | 22.4 |
| Ever had stillbirth | |||
| Yes | 0.8 | 0.8 | 0.9 |
| No | 99.2 | 99.2 | 99.1 |
| Ever had miscarriage | |||
| Yes | 22.3 | 21.3 | 23.1 |
| No | 77.7 | 78.7 | 76.9 |
| Knows general likelihood of pregnancy | *** | ||
| Yes | 46.1 | 37.8 | 51.8 |
| No | 53.9 | 62.2 | 48.2 |
| History of mental illness | † | ||
| Yes | 64.8 | 67.4 | 63.1 |
| No | 35.2 | 32.6 | 36.9 |
| History of medical illness | † | ||
| Yes | 50.6 | 53.3 | 48.7 |
| No | 49.4 | 46.7 | 51.3 |
| Body mass index (kg/m2)‡ | |||
| <25 | 34.3 | 31.4 | 36.3 |
| 25–30 | 33.8 | 34.7 | 33.2 |
| >30 | 31.9 | 33.9 | 30.5 |
| History of military sexual trauma | |||
| Yes | 52.5 | 52.0 | 52.9 |
| No | 47.5 | 48.0 | 47.1 |
| Total | 100.0 | 100.0 | 100.0 |
*
p≤.05.
**
p≤.01.
***
p≤.001.
†
p<.20.
‡
A small number of responses were missing for measures of marital status (one), religion (three), income (12), ever pregnant (two) and body mass index (seven).
Notes: p values indicate differences in distributions between the high and low perceived susceptibility groups and are from chi-squared tests for all measures except “ever had stillbirth,” for which Fisher’s exact test was used because of small cell counts. Percentages may not total 100.0 because of rounding.