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Abortion knowledge and experiences among young women and men in Accra, Ghana

Background : Despite the presence of legal abortion services in Ghana, unsafe abortion remains common, particularly among young women. Little is understood about what young people know about safe and legal abortion, and if and how they are utilizing it. Methods : To characterize abortion use and add...

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Autores principales: Reiger, Sarah T., Dako-Gyeke, Phyllis, Ngo, Thoai D., Eva, Gillian, Gobah, Leonard, Blanchard, Kelly, Chandrasekaran, Sruthi, Grindlay, Kate
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: F1000 Research Limited 2020
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7498762/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32995709
http://dx.doi.org/10.12688/gatesopenres.12961.2
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author Reiger, Sarah T.
Dako-Gyeke, Phyllis
Ngo, Thoai D.
Eva, Gillian
Gobah, Leonard
Blanchard, Kelly
Chandrasekaran, Sruthi
Grindlay, Kate
author_facet Reiger, Sarah T.
Dako-Gyeke, Phyllis
Ngo, Thoai D.
Eva, Gillian
Gobah, Leonard
Blanchard, Kelly
Chandrasekaran, Sruthi
Grindlay, Kate
author_sort Reiger, Sarah T.
collection PubMed
description Background : Despite the presence of legal abortion services in Ghana, unsafe abortion remains common, particularly among young women. Little is understood about what young people know about safe and legal abortion, and if and how they are utilizing it. Methods : To characterize abortion use and address gaps in safe access, from September-December 2013, we conducted a cross-sectional survey with 100 men and 250 women aged 18-24 in Accra, Ghana. Participants were asked about abortion experiences, including prior services, providers, methods, satisfaction, perceived support, and knowledge of laws. Descriptive statistics, Fisher’s exact tests, and chi-square tests were performed. Results : Among surveyed youth, most (87% of women, 64% of men) thought abortion was illegal or did not know the law. In total, 30% of women and 14% of men ever had an abortion and partner who had an abortion, respectively. Among women’s most recent abortions, medication abortion (61%), surgical methods (26%), and unsafe methods categorized “least safe” (14%) were the initial or only methods used. Most women who accessed medication abortion initially or as their only method saw a pharmacist (40%) or no one (33%). Nearly one-quarter of women (n=16, 24%) who initially took tablets used more than one method. Conclusions : Despite experiences with abortion, most young people in this study were unaware of its legality and unsafe abortions occurred. More needs to be done to ensure young people understand the law and have access to safe methods, and that pharmacists are trained to provide appropriate doses and formulations of medication abortion.
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spelling pubmed-74987622020-09-28 Abortion knowledge and experiences among young women and men in Accra, Ghana Reiger, Sarah T. Dako-Gyeke, Phyllis Ngo, Thoai D. Eva, Gillian Gobah, Leonard Blanchard, Kelly Chandrasekaran, Sruthi Grindlay, Kate Gates Open Res Research Article Background : Despite the presence of legal abortion services in Ghana, unsafe abortion remains common, particularly among young women. Little is understood about what young people know about safe and legal abortion, and if and how they are utilizing it. Methods : To characterize abortion use and address gaps in safe access, from September-December 2013, we conducted a cross-sectional survey with 100 men and 250 women aged 18-24 in Accra, Ghana. Participants were asked about abortion experiences, including prior services, providers, methods, satisfaction, perceived support, and knowledge of laws. Descriptive statistics, Fisher’s exact tests, and chi-square tests were performed. Results : Among surveyed youth, most (87% of women, 64% of men) thought abortion was illegal or did not know the law. In total, 30% of women and 14% of men ever had an abortion and partner who had an abortion, respectively. Among women’s most recent abortions, medication abortion (61%), surgical methods (26%), and unsafe methods categorized “least safe” (14%) were the initial or only methods used. Most women who accessed medication abortion initially or as their only method saw a pharmacist (40%) or no one (33%). Nearly one-quarter of women (n=16, 24%) who initially took tablets used more than one method. Conclusions : Despite experiences with abortion, most young people in this study were unaware of its legality and unsafe abortions occurred. More needs to be done to ensure young people understand the law and have access to safe methods, and that pharmacists are trained to provide appropriate doses and formulations of medication abortion. F1000 Research Limited 2020-09-07 /pmc/articles/PMC7498762/ /pubmed/32995709 http://dx.doi.org/10.12688/gatesopenres.12961.2 Text en Copyright: © 2020 Reiger ST et al. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Licence, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Reiger, Sarah T.
Dako-Gyeke, Phyllis
Ngo, Thoai D.
Eva, Gillian
Gobah, Leonard
Blanchard, Kelly
Chandrasekaran, Sruthi
Grindlay, Kate
Abortion knowledge and experiences among young women and men in Accra, Ghana
title Abortion knowledge and experiences among young women and men in Accra, Ghana
title_full Abortion knowledge and experiences among young women and men in Accra, Ghana
title_fullStr Abortion knowledge and experiences among young women and men in Accra, Ghana
title_full_unstemmed Abortion knowledge and experiences among young women and men in Accra, Ghana
title_short Abortion knowledge and experiences among young women and men in Accra, Ghana
title_sort abortion knowledge and experiences among young women and men in accra, ghana
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7498762/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32995709
http://dx.doi.org/10.12688/gatesopenres.12961.2
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