Effect of marital typology, reproductive coercion, and contraceptive methods in abortion rate, Istanbul 2021

INTRODUCTION: Abortion is both a reason for maternal mortality and a consequence of unintended pregnancies. This study aimed to propose the effect of marital typologies, reproductive coercion, and contraception methods on abortion presence among married Turkish women.
METHODS: An observational study including married women was done in the family medicine clinic of a tertiary hospital in Ýstanbul. It was completed between 15 May 2021 and 15 June 2021. A survey was applied to supply sociodemographic data, asking about contraceptive method use, reproductive coercion scale, and marital typology scale questions.
RESULTS: In the reproductive history of the 199 women whose mean age was 37.32±7.54 years, abortion and unintended pregnancy frequencies were found to be 35.17% and 37.18%. The reproductive coercion score was 0.47±0.82 out of a total of 5 points. The most common contraceptive methods were condom use (59.79%) and withdrawal (41.70%), whose success depended more on the male partner. Logistic regression analyses identified young age, early childbearing mother age and unintended pregnancy presence as predictors of abortion presence (OR=0.914; 95% CI: 0.863-0.968; p=0.002, OR=0.862; 95% CI: 0.778-0.954; p=0.002 and OR=5.413; 95% CI: 2.487- 11.780; p<0.001, respectively).
DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION: In light of this study, one out of three married women had a spontaneous or induced abortion history, regardless of the contraceptive method, marital typology, and reproductive coercion score. Therefore, the physician must be aware of the high abortion risk and the information needed for both healthy pregnancy and safe abortion care for a young married woman with an unintended pregnancy.