259394 Potential of Integrating Services: Contraception and Comprehensive Abortion Care in Tigray, Ethiopia

Wednesday, October 31, 2012 : 12:30 PM - 12:45 PM

Caitlin Gerdts, MHS, PhD (c) , Bixby Center for Population, Health, and Sustainability, University of California, Berkeley, School of Public Health, Berkeley, CA
Ndola Prata, MD, MSc , The Bixby Center for Population, Health and Sustainability, School of Public Health, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA
Martine Holsten, MPH , Venture Strategies Innovations, Berkeley, CA
Amanuel Gessessew, MD , Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Mekelle University, Adigrat Town, Ethiopia
     
A 2005 revision to the Ethiopian penal code decriminalized abortion. While the new law greatly expands access to safe, legal abortion in Ethiopia,stigma and barriers to services contribute to persistently high rates of unsafe abortion. The groundbreaking change in Ethiopia's law provides an unprecedented opportunity for integrating family planning services into programs that provide access to safe abortion and post-abortion care. Data for this analysis were collected as through the Comprehensive Abortion Care(CAC)Pilot Project. The study took place in the northern-most region of Ethiopia, Tigray. The project provided a full range of abortion-related services and family planning. Data from 4,416 women seeking abortion-related services in health facilities in Tigray between June 2009 and December 2010 were analyzed. Bivariate analyses were conducted to assess sociodemographic characteristics, reproductive history, prior contraceptive history, and post-abortion contraceptive choices. Results from this analysis suggest that the majority of women seeking abortion-related services in Tigray are young, educated, nulliparous, and do not have experience using contraception. Approximately one third (1,677) of women reported ever contraceptive-use, injectables, and OCPs were the most commonly used methods. 17% of all women seeking abortion-related services reported ever having had an abortion previously. Our analyses also suggest that these women are receptive of contraceptive counseling, and are willing to adopt methods of contraception post-abortion. While further multivariable analyses are still required, the preliminary results of this study suggest that there is ample opportunity to integrate contraceptive counseling and services with safe-termination and post abortion care services in Tigray, Ethiopia.

Learning Areas:
Program planning
Public health or related research

Learning Objectives:
1. Describe the socio-demographic profile, contraceptive history, and post-abortion contraceptive choices of women seeking abortion-related services in Tigray, Ethiopia. 2. Assess the reproductive, socio-demographic, and economic factors that may contribute to those contraceptive choices through multivariable analyses.

Keywords: Abortion, Family Planning

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: I am a 3rd year doctoral student in the department of Epidemiology at UC Berkeley, have been responsible for data collection on family planning and abortion related topics in developing countries for nearly a decade, and have been primarily responsible for the analysis of the data and the writing of this paper.
Any relevant financial relationships? No

I agree to comply with the American Public Health Association Conflict of Interest and Commercial Support Guidelines, and to disclose to the participants any off-label or experimental uses of a commercial product or service discussed in my presentation.

Back to: 5204.0: Abortion: international focus