The Impact of Information Sessions on Women’s Anxiety When Facing a Voluntary Termination of Pregnancy (VTP)—A Case Study about Geneva University Hospitals (Switzerland)

Abstract

Women going through a termination of their pregnancy (VTP) face a stressful situation that should be managed by hospitals in a multidisciplinary way: law, public health, and communication. This paper aims to analyze how the information sessions organized by hospitals influence women’s decisions when facing a VTP. To achieve that, we resorted to four main methodologies: (a) literature review about law, public health, and communication; (b) a 4-week participant observation at Port Royal Hospital (France) and in a social restaurant in Katowice (Poland), as well as three focus groups in the first institution (2012); (c) an online survey addressed to 500 women in Poland, France, and Switzerland (2012–2014); and (d) two focus groups and one deep interview with doctors and nurses from Geneva University Hospitals and Lausanne University Hospital in Switzerland (2017–2018). Based on our quantitative results, we developed a medical protocol to help doctors interact with patients going through a VTP. This protocol was approved by the Geneva University Hospitals’ Ethics Committee (BASEC 2018-01983). We concluded that women’s informed consent is an intimate, reciprocal decision; doctors should help them to make independent decisions; and hospitals need to establish a harmonized discourse based on a code of internal communication, train their doctors in communication skills, and help them adopt a more flexible approach when taking care of these patients.