The Role of Interpersonal Communication in Preventing Unsafe Abortion in Communities: The Dialogues for Life Project in Nepal

Abstract

Legal, procedural, and institutional restrictions on safe abortion services—such as laws forbidding the practice or policies preventing donors from supporting groups who provide legal services—remain a major access barrier for women worldwide. However, even when abortion services are legal, women face social and cultural barriers to accessing safe abortion services and preventing unwanted pregnancy. Interpersonal communication interventions play an important role in overcoming these obstacles, including as part of broad educational- and behavioral-change efforts. This article presents results from an interpersonal communication behavior change pilot intervention, Dialogues for Life, undertaken in Nepal from 2004 to 2006, after abortion was legalized in 2002. The project aimed to encourage and enable women to prevent unplanned pregnancies and unsafe abortions and was driven by dialogue groups and select community events. The authors’ results confirm that a dialogue-based interpersonal communication intervention can help change behavior and that this method is feasible in a low-resource, low-literacy setting. Dialogue groups play a key role in addressing sensitive and stigmatizing health issues such as unsafe abortion and in empowering women to negotiate for the social support they need when making decisions about their health.

The Impact of Pro-life Education on Abortion Attitude Among College Students in Nepal

“…Furthermore, Nepal is primarily a maledominant country. When it comes to deciding on contraceptive methods, number, and gender of children; husbands have a greater decision making authority than the wives (Bhattaria, 2011). Thus, it is vital for both male and female students to be a part of prolife education so that they can make an informed decision about their reproductive health and family.…”

“…In Nepal, a study showed that 36% of women between 25 and 29 years of age seek induced abortion (Thapa & Padhye, 2001). In Nepal, common reasons for seeking induced abortion are multiple pregnancies (61.4%), completed desired family size (61.4%), unwanted pregnancy in marriage (10.52%), unintended pregnancy in unmarried young women (5.26%) and a desire to have a son instead of a daughter (Puri et al, 2007;Dawadi & Shrestha, 2007;Shrivastava, Bajracharya & Thapa, 2010& Bhattarai, 2011.…”

“…This has raised another alarming issue: sex-determined induced abortion in Nepal, which is beyond the scope and purpose of this research (Matrika, 2006). According to Sushma B Rayamajhi (2011), a senior community nurse administrator at the Family Health Division in Nepal, an estimate of 70,000 legal abortions are carried out in Nepal every year (Bhattarai, 2011) During her 32-year career in the health sector serving in all 75 districts of Nepal, she has seen an alarming rise in the abortion rate in Nepal (Bhattarai, 2011).…”

“…In addition, there have been several community information campaigns, dialogue groups and advertisements on CAC services through various media in Nepal (Singh & Jha, 2007;Bingham, Drake, Goodyear, Gopinath, Kaufman & Bhattarai, 2011). Recommendations have been made to incorporate pre-service CAC training into curricula of medical, nursing and midwifery schools.…”

Induced Abortion - A Clinical Procedure Lined with Existential Attitudes and Needs among Women and Men, in Sweden

“…Most abortions (89%) are performed early in pregnancy, before nine weeks [2]. In the USA, women seek abortion for reasons related to their circumstances, such as socioeconomic aspects, age, health, parity, and marital status [3]: these reasons are similar for women and men in a Nordic context [4,5], especially for women and men involved in repeat abortion [6,7]. Men's role in sexual and reproductive health is not always clear.…”