It is estimated that 225 million women worldwide have an unmet need for family planning, and more than half live in low and middle-income countries. Increasing the choice of contraceptive methods available can reduce this unmet need. Microneedle drug delivery systems represent a new technology for minimally invasive self administration of contraceptives. We explored stakeholders’ views on different aspects of a proposed microneedle-based hormonal contraceptive delivery system. The feedback was used to iteratively develop this delivery system.
Focus group discussions and semi-structured interviews were conducted with potential stakeholders (women and trans males of childbearing age, their partners, and health professionals and organisations that provide family planning advice and contraception services) in Uganda, The Gambia, Malawi, and the UK, exploring
concept acceptability and gathering feedback on different aspects of design and usability of the proposed delivery system.