Combined oral contraceptives (COC), are among the most widely used contraceptive methods in the world today. Despite the different changes in terms of estrogen/progestogen combinations and dosages, the thromboembolic risk for a woman who takes combined oral contraceptives persists to date.
Methods: The review of relevant literature and international guidelines on prescription of combined oral contraceptives made it possible to create a proposal for informed consent to be used for prescribing.
Results: The several sections of our consent proposal were designed according to a rationale in order to cover all the aspects presented by worldwide guidelines: how to take, adverse effects, advertisements, extra-contraceptive benefits and effects, a checklist for condition at risk of thromboembolism, the signature of the woman.
Conclusions: An informed consent to standardize combined oral contraceptives prescription can improve women's eligibility, mitigate thromboembolic risk, and assure legal protection to healthcare providers. In this systematic review in particular, we refer to the Italian medical-legal scenario, to which our group of researchers belongs. However, the model proposed was designed in the respect of main healthcare organization guidelines, and it could be easily used by any center in the world.
Keywords: contraceptive informed consent; oral contraceptive; thrombosis risk; venous thromboembolism.