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Texas women’s decisions and experiences regarding self-managed abortion
BACKGROUND: Prior research has shown that a small proportion of U.S. women attempt to self-manage their abortion. The objective of this study is to describe Texas women’s motivations for and experiences with attempts to self-manage an abortion. The objective of this study is to describe Texas women’...
Autores principales: | , , , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
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BioMed Central
2020
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6945569/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31906937 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12905-019-0877-0 |
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author | Fuentes, Liza Baum, Sarah Keefe-Oates, Brianna White, Kari Hopkins, Kristine Potter, Joseph Grossman, Daniel |
author_facet | Fuentes, Liza Baum, Sarah Keefe-Oates, Brianna White, Kari Hopkins, Kristine Potter, Joseph Grossman, Daniel |
author_sort | Fuentes, Liza |
collection | PubMed |
description | BACKGROUND: Prior research has shown that a small proportion of U.S. women attempt to self-manage their abortion. The objective of this study is to describe Texas women’s motivations for and experiences with attempts to self-manage an abortion. The objective of this study is to describe Texas women’s motivations for and experiences with attempts to self-manage an abortion. METHODS: We report results from two data sources: two waves of surveys with women seeking abortion services at Texas facilities in 2012 and 2014 and qualitative interviews with women who reported attempting to self-manage their abortion while living in Texas at some time between 2009 and 2014. We report the prevalence of attempted self-managed abortion for the current pregnancy among survey respondents, and describe interview participants’ decision-making and experiences with abortion self-management. RESULTS: 6.9% (95% CI 5.2–9.0%) of abortion clients (n = 721) reported they had tried to end their current pregnancy on their own before coming to the clinic for an abortion. Interview participants (n = 18) described multiple reasons for their decision to attempt to self-manage abortion. No single reason was enough for any participant to consider self-managing their abortion; however, poverty intersected with and layered upon other obstacles to leave them feeling they had no other option. Ten interview participants reported having a complete abortion after taking medications, most of which was identified as misoprostol. None of the six women who used home remedies alone reported having a successful abortion; many described using these methods for several days or weeks which ultimately did not work, resulting in delays for some, greater distress, and higher costs. CONCLUSION: These findings point to a need to ensure that women who may consider self-managed abortion have accurate information about effective methods, what to expect in the process, and where to go for questions and follow-up care. There is increasing evidence that given accurate information and access to clinical consultation, self-managed abortion is as safe as clinic-based abortion care and that many women find it acceptable, while others may prefer to use clinic-based abortion care. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-6945569 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2020 |
publisher | BioMed Central |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-69455692020-01-07 Texas women’s decisions and experiences regarding self-managed abortion Fuentes, Liza Baum, Sarah Keefe-Oates, Brianna White, Kari Hopkins, Kristine Potter, Joseph Grossman, Daniel BMC Womens Health Research Article BACKGROUND: Prior research has shown that a small proportion of U.S. women attempt to self-manage their abortion. The objective of this study is to describe Texas women’s motivations for and experiences with attempts to self-manage an abortion. The objective of this study is to describe Texas women’s motivations for and experiences with attempts to self-manage an abortion. METHODS: We report results from two data sources: two waves of surveys with women seeking abortion services at Texas facilities in 2012 and 2014 and qualitative interviews with women who reported attempting to self-manage their abortion while living in Texas at some time between 2009 and 2014. We report the prevalence of attempted self-managed abortion for the current pregnancy among survey respondents, and describe interview participants’ decision-making and experiences with abortion self-management. RESULTS: 6.9% (95% CI 5.2–9.0%) of abortion clients (n = 721) reported they had tried to end their current pregnancy on their own before coming to the clinic for an abortion. Interview participants (n = 18) described multiple reasons for their decision to attempt to self-manage abortion. No single reason was enough for any participant to consider self-managing their abortion; however, poverty intersected with and layered upon other obstacles to leave them feeling they had no other option. Ten interview participants reported having a complete abortion after taking medications, most of which was identified as misoprostol. None of the six women who used home remedies alone reported having a successful abortion; many described using these methods for several days or weeks which ultimately did not work, resulting in delays for some, greater distress, and higher costs. CONCLUSION: These findings point to a need to ensure that women who may consider self-managed abortion have accurate information about effective methods, what to expect in the process, and where to go for questions and follow-up care. There is increasing evidence that given accurate information and access to clinical consultation, self-managed abortion is as safe as clinic-based abortion care and that many women find it acceptable, while others may prefer to use clinic-based abortion care. BioMed Central 2020-01-06 /pmc/articles/PMC6945569/ /pubmed/31906937 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12905-019-0877-0 Text en © The Author(s). 2020 Open Access This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated. |
spellingShingle | Research Article Fuentes, Liza Baum, Sarah Keefe-Oates, Brianna White, Kari Hopkins, Kristine Potter, Joseph Grossman, Daniel Texas women’s decisions and experiences regarding self-managed abortion |
title | Texas women’s decisions and experiences regarding self-managed abortion |
title_full | Texas women’s decisions and experiences regarding self-managed abortion |
title_fullStr | Texas women’s decisions and experiences regarding self-managed abortion |
title_full_unstemmed | Texas women’s decisions and experiences regarding self-managed abortion |
title_short | Texas women’s decisions and experiences regarding self-managed abortion |
title_sort | texas women’s decisions and experiences regarding self-managed abortion |
topic | Research Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6945569/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31906937 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12905-019-0877-0 |
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