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The ring plus project: safety and acceptability of vaginal rings that protect women from unintended pregnancy

Overview of attention for article published in BMC Public Health, April 2015
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Title
The ring plus project: safety and acceptability of vaginal rings that protect women from unintended pregnancy
Published in
BMC Public Health, April 2015
DOI 10.1186/s12889-015-1680-y
Pubmed ID
Authors

Céline Schurmans, Irith De Baetselier, Evelyne Kestelyn, Vicky Jespers, Thérèse Delvaux, Stephen K Agaba, Harry van Loen, Joris Menten, Janneke van de Wijgert, Tania Crucitti, for the RING PLUS study group

Abstract

Research is ongoing to develop multipurpose vaginal rings to be used continuously for contraception and to prevent Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) infection. Contraceptive vaginal rings (CVRs) are available in a number of countries and are most of the time used intermittently i.e. three weeks out of a 4-week cycle. Efficacy trials with a dapivirine-containing vaginal ring for HIV prevention are ongoing and plans to develop multi-purpose vaginal rings for prevention of both HIV and pregnancy have been elaborated. In contrast with the CVRs, multi-purpose vaginal rings will have to be used continuously. Women who continuously use a CVR will no longer have menses. Furthermore, some safety aspects of CVR use have never been studied in-depth in the past, such as the impact of the vaginal ring on the vaginal microbiota, biofilm formation and induction of inflammation. We studied acceptability and these novel aspects of safety in Rwandan women. Although significant progress has been made over the past decade, Rwanda still has a high unmet need for contraception (with 47% unplanned births) and a generalized HIV epidemic, and CVRs are not yet available. We will conduct an open label, single centre, randomized controlled trial. A total of 120 HIV-negative women will be randomized to intermittent CVR use (to allow menstruation) or continuous CVR use. Women will be followed for a maximum of 14 weeks. In parallel, we will conduct a qualitative study using in-depth interview and focus group discussion methodology. In addition to evaluating the safety and acceptability of intermittent and continuous CVR use in Rwandan women, we hope that our findings will inform the development of future multipurpose vaginal rings, will prepare Rwandan study populations for future clinical trials of multipurpose vaginal rings, and will pave the way for introduction of CVRs on African markets. Clinicaltrials.gov NCT01796613 . Registered 14 February 2013.

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The data shown below were collected from the profiles of 3 X users who shared this research output. Click here to find out more about how the information was compiled.
Mendeley readers

Mendeley readers

The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 106 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.

Geographical breakdown

Country Count As %
United Kingdom 1 <1%
France 1 <1%
Unknown 104 98%

Demographic breakdown

Readers by professional status Count As %
Researcher 20 19%
Student > Master 17 16%
Student > Ph. D. Student 9 8%
Student > Bachelor 5 5%
Student > Postgraduate 4 4%
Other 16 15%
Unknown 35 33%
Readers by discipline Count As %
Medicine and Dentistry 26 25%
Nursing and Health Professions 10 9%
Social Sciences 8 8%
Pharmacology, Toxicology and Pharmaceutical Science 5 5%
Psychology 4 4%
Other 16 15%
Unknown 37 35%
Attention Score in Context

Attention Score in Context

This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 1. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 17 April 2015.
All research outputs
#17,758,492
of 22,805,349 outputs
Outputs from BMC Public Health
#12,445
of 14,857 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#180,254
of 264,165 outputs
Outputs of similar age from BMC Public Health
#210
of 256 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 22,805,349 research outputs across all sources so far. This one is in the 19th percentile – i.e., 19% of other outputs scored the same or lower than it.
So far Altmetric has tracked 14,857 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 13.9. This one is in the 13th percentile – i.e., 13% of its peers scored the same or lower than it.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 264,165 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one is in the 26th percentile – i.e., 26% of its contemporaries scored the same or lower than it.
We're also able to compare this research output to 256 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one is in the 15th percentile – i.e., 15% of its contemporaries scored the same or lower than it.