Sources of prescription contraceptives and subsequent pregnancy among young women

For more than four in 10 teenage women who first obtained a prescription contraceptive from a private doctor or family planning clinic prior to pregnancy, marriage or interview in 1979, that method was the first they had ever used. Whites were over two times more likely to have previously used a nonprescription method than were blacks. Blacks, on the other hand, were two times more likely than whites to have been virgins before first using a prescription method. Slightly more than half of all young women who used a prescription method first obtained it from a family planning clinic, and the remainder got it from a private physician. Blacks were much more likely to have gone to a clinic than were whites. Nine in 10 of those who obtained a prescription method chose the pill. Among blacks, there was no appreciable difference between those who got the method from a clinic and those whose source was a private doctor. Whites who obtained their method from a private doctor, however, were somewhat more likely to choose the pill than were those who got it from a clinic. Of all who had been sexually active before ever using a prescription method, about eight out of 10 whites, but only about five in 10 blacks, had previously used a nonprescription method. Overall, there was an interval of about one year between first intercourse and the time the young women first got a prescription method. Among whites, there was no difference in parental education or family stability between clinic and private physician patients.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)