Abortion care in a pandemic: an analysis of the number and social profile of people requesting and receiving abortion care during the first COVID-19 lockdown (March 16 to June 14, 2020) in Flanders, Belgium

Archives of Public Health

Sarah Van de Velde¹  Edwin Wouters¹  Jonas Wood¹  Leen De Kort¹ 

[1] Centre for Population, Family and Health, Department of Sociology, University of Antwerp, Sint-Jacobstraat 2-4, 2000, Antwerp, Belgium;

关键词: COVID-19;    Abortion;    Belgium;    Reproductive health;    Healthcare services;   

DOI  :  10.1186/s13690-021-00665-6

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundThe COVID-19 pandemic and the national COVID-19 measures might have increased potential barriers to abortion care and created new ones, especially for vulnerable groups. This study documents the impact of the pandemic and the lockdown measures on the profile of people going through the abortion process.MethodsUsing anonymized patient records from a Belgian abortion centre, we first compared the number of abortion requests and procedures during the first COVID-19 lockdown with the same months in the five preceding years. Next, we analysed the social profile of people requesting an abortion in those two time periods and looked at the number of long-acting reversible contraceptive devices (LARC) placed after curettage.ResultsThe abortion centre saw a drop in the number of abortion requests during the lockdown. This difference was more pronounced for people in paid employment and people using (modern) contraception. People were also more likely to request an abortion earlier in their pregnancy. The drop in abortion procedures and LARC’s placed after curettage was proportionate to the drop in abortion requests and did not differ according to clients’ characteristics.ConclusionQuestions arose concerning the potential selectivity with which COVID-19 influenced the need for abortion care and accessibility to services. Although there was a general drop in abortion requests and procedures during the first COVID-19 lockdown in the studied abortion centre, our results suggest that the profile of people requesting and receiving an abortion did only slightly change during the lockdown, and did not affect vulnerable groups visibly harder.

【 授权许可】

CC BY