Frequency of self reported abortion and associated factors in Iran

Abstract

Background: There are few reliable Iranian-induced abortion data. The aim of this paper was to investigate the prevalence and socioeconomic characteristics of women and men who report having had or been a partner in an abortion.

Materials and methods: A cross-sectional survey of women and men aged 15-49 years referred to the health center that randomly selected from 110 health center that was used.

Results: Data from 1520 women and men surveys were analyzed. One in 10 women and one in 12 men had experienced or been a partner in an abortion. In adjusted analyses, women and men in the 34-49 age group [adjusted odds ratio (AOR) 0.62, 95% (CI) 0.41, 0.96], the importance of religion in fertility (AOR = 0.42; 95% CI 0.26, 0.67), dissatisfied general health (AOR = 0.52; 95% CI 0.32, 0.87), and history of unwanted pregnancy for twice (AOR = 2.32; 95% CI 1.43, 3.77) and history of unwanted pregnancy for three-time or more (AOR = 2.69; 95% CI 1.59, 5.49) were associated with significantly increased odds of abortion. Haven't heard of medication abortion, that is, abortion with tablets (AOR = 0.43; 95% CI 0.29, 0.67) was associated with significantly reduced odds of abortion.

Conclusions: The findings contribute to scarce information about abortion in Iranian. Due to the high prevalence of abortion and the country's population growth policy, Iranian women need a full range of sexual and reproductive health services, including contraceptive counseling and accessible abortion care.

Keywords: Abortion; Iran; associated factors; frequency; self-reported.