The Causal Effects of Hormonal Contraceptives on Sexuality Outcomes
based on reviews by Summer Mengelkoch and 1 anonymous reviewer
Positive Treatment Effects and High Heterogeneity of Hormonal Contraceptive Use on Women's Sexuality
Recommendation: posted 22 January 2025, validated 22 January 2025
Evans, T. (2025) The Causal Effects of Hormonal Contraceptives on Sexuality Outcomes. Peer Community in Registered Reports, 100744. 10.24072/pci.rr.100744
This is a stage 2 based on:
Laura J. Botzet, Julia M. Rohrer, Lars Penke, and Ruben C. Arslan
https://osf.io/ejmk6?view_only=9e9a21d41c9a47f998669fec70ea722e
Recommendation
Level of bias control achieved: Level 3. At least some of the data/evidence that was used to answer the research question existed and was accessible in principle prior to IPA but the authors certify that they did not access any part of that data/evidence until after IPA.
List of eligible PCI-RR-friendly journals:
- Collabra: Psychology
- Peer Community Journal
- PeerJ
- Royal Society Open Science
- Studia Psychologica
- Swiss Psychology Open
The recommender in charge of the evaluation of the article and the reviewers declared that they have no conflict of interest (as defined in the code of conduct of PCI) with the authors or with the content of the article.
Evaluation round #2
DOI or URL of the report: https://osf.io/ujp62
Version of the report: 2
Author's Reply, 14 Jan 2025
Decision by Thomas Evans, posted 15 Nov 2024, validated 15 Nov 2024
Thank-you for responding to the previous feedback provided and being so comprehensive and transparent in your working. I believe the responses were appropriate and changes have indeed made the manuscript clearer and more convincing.
Based upon a few of the changes, I'd like to suggest to you that a protocol of deviations from the Stage 1 registration is provided to readers (either as an appendices or as a supplementary doc on the OSF but explicitly signposted within the manuscript) to make sure that all the changes made are maximally visible. I have no concerns over the deviations made, however I think it was quite easy to miss them when reading the manuscript and a transparent account of them all logging where the original plans have changed, how and why, would be a valuable addiiton.
Once this has been actioned (or a very strong justification for not, if you disagree), I will be very happy to provide a recommendation for this important and impactful work.
Many thanks,
Tom
Evaluation round #1
DOI or URL of the report: https://osf.io/k8fps
Version of the report: 1
Author's Reply, 13 Nov 2024
Decision by Thomas Evans, posted 16 May 2024, validated 16 May 2024
Thanks for submitting one of your Stage 2 reports. The work included is impressive and substantive and I thoroughly enjoyed learning more. I am also very grateful to our returning reviewers who have advised that only relatively minor changes are needed to help improve the clarity of your communication. I have no further feedback beyond their very helpful suggestions, so I encourage you to work through their comments systematically, providing a response to each to discuss if/how you have actioned and I will look forward to re-reading this shorltly.
Congratulations, thanks, and take care,
Dr Thomas Rhys Evans
Reviewed by Summer Mengelkoch, 18 Apr 2024
Reviewed by anonymous reviewer 1, 16 May 2024
I enjoyed reading the Stage 2 manuscript! The authors did a good job using the data and following their registered plan of testing their hypotheses. I have several relatively minor comments on this version of the manuscript:
From my understanding, in the PARFAIM dataset, if women were not sexually active they were given a code of non-hormonal contraceptive user even though they did not actually answer a question about their hormonal contraceptive use. This is indeed an issue because women who are not sexually active may be on HCs for a variety of other reasons. I agree that those women should be excluded from analyses because HC use cannot be ascertained. (I feel less strongly about the fact that they were given a 0 for sexual frequency.) Overall, I think this deviation from the Stage 1 plan is appropriate.
Though I am not sure about excluding women in lesbian relationships. Past research has found similar effects for the link between reproductive hormones and women’s sexualty (e.g., sexual desire) among women who are in both heterosexual and homosexual relationships. I suggest this is added as a robustness analysis.
Overall, I found the analyses and results sound. With the exception of the final section (contraceptive decisions an individual treatment effects), because at this point I forgot what that model entailed.
A general point is that I found the paper quite difficult to read. When there is so much going on, a reader will need a bit more hand-holding to follow the reasoning for all analyses. It is a lot to keep in one’s working memory without more written guidance. I think adding some of that hand-holding and maybe simplifying some sentences to emphasize the central point better would go a long way.
Did the authors look at whether the big 5 influenced decisions to use HCs or more likely to stop and start use of HCs? That would be interesting.
In the discussion, I would like a bit more elaboration on
(a) why specifically the one-year interval may be a limitation (and what interval may be better). Additionally maybe the reason for experimental studies’ different effects might be with the time course of adjustment.
(b) a possible explanations for the negative association between HC use and income and education (including potentially biases from physicians)
(c) a greater discussion about what variables (beyond big 5 and age) in future studies may be important for understanding the heterogeneity individual treatment effects
Parts of the discussion also felt a bit sterile/clinical to me. Even if not measured in PARFAIM, it is easy to think about some psychological processes that might surround some of women’s decisions to use or not use HCs depending on life events.
