Abstract
Objectives: Understanding people's preferences for abortion terminology can help to support patient-centered care and inform research efforts. This study aims to assess the preferred terminology among people presenting for abortions and to explore the pregnancy characteristics associated with these preferences. Methods: In 2019, we administered surveys to people ages 15-45 seeking care at four US abortion facilities about their experiences accessing abortion care, including preferred terms for their care. Respondents could mark more than one term, suggest their own, or indicate no preference. We used descriptive statistics and multivariate multinomial logistic regression to explore associations between respondents’ abortion circumstances and their preferred terminology. Results: Preferred terms among the 697 participants responding to the terminology preference question included: “abortion” (43%), “ending a pregnancy” (33%), and “pregnancy termination” (29%); 24% had no preference. In multivariate models, those who were not sure if they wanted to become pregnant were more likely than those who did not want to be pregnant to prefer “abortion” than to have no preference (adjusted Relative Risk Ratio, aRRR: 1.74, 1.01-3.00). Participants who felt very worried other people might find out about the abortion, compared to participants who were not at all worried, were more likely to prefer “ending a pregnancy” over no preference for a term (aRRR: 2.70, 1.46-4.98). Conclusions: These findings indicate that people have varied preferences for how they want to refer to their abortions, emphasizing the importance of being responsive to people's preferences during clinical interactions and in the design and conduct of abortion research.
Highlights
This study aims to assess the preferred terminology among people presenting for abortions and to explore the pregnancy characteristics associated with these preferences
Preferred terms among the 697 participants responding to the terminology preference question included: “abortion” (43%), “ending a pregnancy” (33%), and “pregnancy termination” (29%); 24% had no preference
Participants who felt very worried other people might find out about the abortion, compared to participants who were not at all worried, were more likely to prefer “ending a pregnancy” over no preference for a term. These findings indicate that people have varied preferences for how they want to refer to their abortions, emphasizing the importance of being responsive to people’s preferences during clinical interactions and in the design and conduct of abortion research
Summary
Medication abortion follow-up historically requires in-person care with ultrasound or laboratory testing. Beginning March 2020, the University of New Mexico (UNM) changed routine medication abortionfollow-up to two telephone calls 7 and 30 days after mifepristone administration with a home urine pregnancy test (UPT) at day 28. We sought to compare medication abortionlost to follow-up (LTFU) rates before and after this change. LTFU rates were 16% for the phone group and 17% for the ultrasound group (p=0.83). The phone group made initial contact a median of 11 (IQR, 7–16) days after the index visit. Half (53%) completed home UPT a median of 33 (IQR, 30–36) days later with 89% of these confirming medication abortioncompletion. Conclusions: Follow-up by telephone and home UPT is safe and feasible with no change in LTFU rates. P29 MESSAGING RECOMMENDATIONS TO ADVANCE INTEGRATING MEDICATION ABORTION INTO FAMILY MEDICINE S Wulf University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, US A Byrne Fields, C Perez, N Razon, L Maldonado, S McNeil, C Dehlendorf
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