Exploring abortion attitudes of US adolescents and young adults using social media

Abstract

Objectives: To explore the use of social media for recruitment of adolescents and young adults in the United States and to describe how they learn and feel about abortion.

Study design: Americans 13-29years of age were recruited through web-based social media to complete an online survey about sex and pregnancy-related decision making, including abortion. Descriptive statistics were used to compare the study population's demographics and prevalence of sexual experience to national databases [US Census and National Survey of Family Growth (NSFG)] and to describe abortion attitudes and related topics.

Results: Survey completion rate was 78% and 996 participants' responses were analyzed. The study population appeared diverse with respect to gender, ethnicity, race and geographic distribution with some similarities to the US Census and was sexually active at an earlier age compared to the NSFG. While the majority of participants supported abortion (74%), acceptance of abortion for themselves or their partners varied based on circumstances. The media were the most popular sources of information for learning about sex and abortion (73% and 68%, respectively). Parents had the most influence on individuals' abortion stances compared to other sources.

Conclusions: Social media recruitment, compared to traditional methods, has the potential to reach a geographically, ethnically and racially diverse group of young people to study sensitive topics in an economical and expedient fashion. Similar to the general population, the study population's abortion views fell on a spectrum with overall supportive attitudes toward abortion. The media served as common sources of information for learning about both sex and abortion.

Implications: Web-based social media offer a novel recruiting strategy to study sensitive topics such as abortion attitudes among difficult-to-reach populations such as adolescents and young adults. The presented findings begin characterizing young people's abortion attitudes, offering a foundation for more in-depth research.

Keywords: Abortion socialization; Attitude formation; Facebook recruitment; Internet research; Teen attitudes.