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Improving abortion underreporting in the USA: a cognitive interview study
Abortion is a difficult-to-measure behaviour with extensive underreporting in surveys, which compromises the ability to study and monitor it. We aimed to improve understanding of how women interpret and respond to survey items asking if they have had an abortion. We developed new questions hypothesi...
Autores principales: | , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
2023
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9812882/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36007884 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13691058.2022.2113434 |
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author | Mueller, Jennifer Kirstein, Marielle VandeVusse, Alicia Lindberg, Laura D. |
author_facet | Mueller, Jennifer Kirstein, Marielle VandeVusse, Alicia Lindberg, Laura D. |
author_sort | Mueller, Jennifer |
collection | PubMed |
description | Abortion is a difficult-to-measure behaviour with extensive underreporting in surveys, which compromises the ability to study and monitor it. We aimed to improve understanding of how women interpret and respond to survey items asking if they have had an abortion. We developed new questions hypothesised to improve abortion reporting, using approaches that aim to clarify which experiences to report; reduce the stigma and sensitivity of abortion; reduce the sense of intrusiveness of asking about abortion; and increase respondent motivation to report. We conducted cognitive interviews with cisgender women aged 18–49 in two US states (N = 64) to assess these new approaches and questions for improving abortion reporting. Our findings suggest that including abortion as part of a list of other sexual and reproductive health services, asking a yes/no question about lifetime experience of abortion instead of asking about number of abortions, and developing an improved introduction to abortion questions may help to elicit more accurate survey reports. Opportunities exist to improve survey measurement of abortion. Reducing the underreporting of abortion in surveys has the potential to improve sexual and reproductive health research that relies on pregnancy histories. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-9812882 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2023 |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-98128822023-01-05 Improving abortion underreporting in the USA: a cognitive interview study Mueller, Jennifer Kirstein, Marielle VandeVusse, Alicia Lindberg, Laura D. Cult Health Sex Article Abortion is a difficult-to-measure behaviour with extensive underreporting in surveys, which compromises the ability to study and monitor it. We aimed to improve understanding of how women interpret and respond to survey items asking if they have had an abortion. We developed new questions hypothesised to improve abortion reporting, using approaches that aim to clarify which experiences to report; reduce the stigma and sensitivity of abortion; reduce the sense of intrusiveness of asking about abortion; and increase respondent motivation to report. We conducted cognitive interviews with cisgender women aged 18–49 in two US states (N = 64) to assess these new approaches and questions for improving abortion reporting. Our findings suggest that including abortion as part of a list of other sexual and reproductive health services, asking a yes/no question about lifetime experience of abortion instead of asking about number of abortions, and developing an improved introduction to abortion questions may help to elicit more accurate survey reports. Opportunities exist to improve survey measurement of abortion. Reducing the underreporting of abortion in surveys has the potential to improve sexual and reproductive health research that relies on pregnancy histories. 2023-01 2022-08-25 /pmc/articles/PMC9812882/ /pubmed/36007884 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13691058.2022.2113434 Text en https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/) ), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way. |
spellingShingle | Article Mueller, Jennifer Kirstein, Marielle VandeVusse, Alicia Lindberg, Laura D. Improving abortion underreporting in the USA: a cognitive interview study |
title | Improving abortion underreporting in the USA: a cognitive interview study |
title_full | Improving abortion underreporting in the USA: a cognitive interview study |
title_fullStr | Improving abortion underreporting in the USA: a cognitive interview study |
title_full_unstemmed | Improving abortion underreporting in the USA: a cognitive interview study |
title_short | Improving abortion underreporting in the USA: a cognitive interview study |
title_sort | improving abortion underreporting in the usa: a cognitive interview study |
topic | Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9812882/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36007884 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13691058.2022.2113434 |
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