The impact of psychiatric history on women's pre- and postabortion experiences

Abstract

Negative abortion experiences may, at least partially, stem from prior or underlying mental health problems.

Anxiety and quality of life after first‐trimester termination of pregnancy: a prospective study

“…Not surprisingly, both a history of psychiatric morbidity and an increased level of anxiety at baseline were significant predictors of persistent high levels of anxiety and/or low quality of life during follow up. This agrees with common findings that mental health, especially anxiety status, before a TOP strongly predicts mental health status following TOP . As also reported by Broen et al.…”

Correlates of Common Mental Disorders Among Dutch Women Who Have Had an Abortion: A Longitudinal Cohort Study

“…Perhaps our most remarkable finding is that none of the abortion‐related variables studied were related to the outcome. This is an important result, given earlier findings that decision difficulty, negative emotions postabortion, and other preabortion and postabortion variables have been strongly associated with psychiatric history before the abortion . Contrary to earlier findings, negative emotional reactions after an abortion were not associated with postabortion mental disorders in our sample.…”

“…In addition, women who have had multiple abortions could have a greater risk of mental disorders than women who have had one, although others found no association in adjusted analyses . Furthermore, several abortion‐related variables—difficulty deciding to have an abortion, low self‐efficacy for coping with an abortion, postabortion avoidance coping, the emotional burden of having an unwanted pregnancy and abortion, and negative emotions after an abortion—have been found to be associated with psychiatric history and might affect long‐term mental health. Indeed, difficulty deciding to have an abortion has been linked to higher depression scores six months after an abortion and to increased negative emotions two years after .…”

Dimensions of decision difficulty in women’s decision-making about abortion: A mixed methods longitudinal study

“…Most women who request an induced abortion have already made their decision before they contact the abortion clinic to make an appointment [3, 4]; a US study showed that the median time between pregnancy confirmation and abortion decision was 0 days [5]. However, studies suggested that 25–35% of abortion clients have experienced (some) decision difficulty as to whether to continue or terminate their pregnancy [4, 6, 7]. Verifying whether a woman is certain about her abortion request is a standard procedure in Dutch abortion clinics.…”

“…As long as she hesitates, the pregnancy cannot be terminated [4]. Even though around 90% of women are satisfied with their decision to terminate an unwanted pregnancy [7], there is a small group of women who feel conflicted and might need options counselling. To identify these women, a deeper understanding of the abortion decision process is required.…”