October 1996 B arrier Methods General Q.1. The advantages of barrier methods, such as STD protection, should be emphasized to providers and clients, as should be the importance of correct and consistent use to achieve pregnancy protection. Barrier methods provide less protection against pregnancy and STDs with typical use. Barrier methods should be presented to clients equally with other methods, allowing the client to choose the method most suitable for him or her. Therefore they need preventive methods.
Barrier methods are the only class of family planning methods that protects users against STDs.
A second reason that barrier methods are important is that some people in need of family planning are not medically eligible to use, or are unwilling to use, hormonal methods, IUDs, NFP, or surgical contraception. Yet anecdotal evidence points to provider bias against barrier methods. While the typical effectiveness of barrier methods is indeed less than that of hormonals and IUDs, for consistent and correct users, barrier method effectiveness is quite high.