- Prescribing Advice for GPs - https://www.prescriber.org.uk -

Contraceptive interaction guidance

The Faculty of Sexual and Reproductive Healthcare issued guidance (PDF) earlier this year about drug interactions with hormonal contraceptives.

The guidance discusses the impact of concurrent administration of contraceptives with several classes of drugs including antibiotics, enzyme-inducing drugs, progesterone receptor modulators, drugs that may affect absorption and drugs that affect stomach pH.

The recommendation that is the biggest change from current practice is that additional contraceptive precautions are no longer required to maintain contraceptive efficacy when using non-enzyme inducing antibiotics.

Action: This guidance should be considered essential information for clinicians who prescribe hormonal contraceptives or who prescribe medication to women already using hormonal contraceptives.