Marital status and abortion among young women in Rupandehi, Nepal

BMC Women's Health

Research Article

Maria F Gallo¹  Sharad Sharma²  Ram Chandra Khanal²  Valerie N Acre³  Kathryn L Andersen³  Alexandra Teixeira³  Shailes Neupane⁴ 

[1] Division of Epidemiology, The Ohio State University, College of Public Health, 324 Cunz Hall 1841 Neil Avenue, 43210, Columbus, OH, USA;Ipas Nepal, PO Box 11621,, Tewa Tower, 3rd Floor, Teku, Kathmandu, Nepal;Ipas, 300 Market St., Suite 200, 27516, Chapel Hill, NC, USA;Valley Research Group, PO Box 4112, Kathmandu, Nepal;

关键词: Adolescents;    Induced abortion;    Nepal;    Pregnancy;   

DOI  :  10.1186/s12905-015-0175-4

 received in 2014-07-24, accepted in 2015-01-30,  发布年份 2015

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundDespite liberalization of the Nepal abortion law, young women continue to experience barriers to safe abortion services. We hypothesize that marital status may differentially impact such barriers, given the societal context of Nepal.MethodsWe evaluated differences in reproductive knowledge and attitudes by marital status with a probability-based, cross-sectional survey of young women in Rupandehi district, Nepal. Participants (N = 600) were surveyed in 2012 on demographics, romantic experiences, media habits, reproductive information, and abortion knowledge and attitudes. We used logistic regression to assess differences by marital status, controlling for age.ResultsParticipants, who comprised never-married (54%) and ever-married women (45%), reported good access to basic reproductive health and abortion information. Social desirability bias might have prevented reporting of premarital romantic and sexual activity given that participants reported more premarital activities for their friends than for themselves. Only 45% knew that abortion was legal, and fewer ever-married women were aware of abortion legality. Never-married women expected more negative responses from having an abortion than ever-married women.ConclusionsFindings highlight the need for providing sexual and reproductive health care information and services to young women regardless of marital status.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© Andersen et al.; licensee BioMed Central. 2015