Assessment of Prevalence and Reasons for Termination of Pregnancy at Arbaminch General Hospital, Southern Ethiopia

Abstract

Introduction: Increasing legal access to abortion is associated with improvement in sexual and reproductive health. Conversely, unsafe abortion and related mortality are both highest in countries with narrow grounds for legal abortion. Objectives: To determine the prevalence and reasons for terminations of pregnancy at Arbaminch General Hospital Methods: A retrospective cross sectional study was conducted at Arbaminch General Hospital from March 10-20, 2008EC, a total of 182 cards of women who came for abortion services from March 2006-February 2008EC were included by systematic random sampling with inclusion and exclusion criteria. Chi square (x2) test calculated to analyze the statistical association between abortion types and other variables, p-value less than 0.05 was considered statistically significant. Result; According to this study, of the total calculated 182 sample size from clients admitted for both spontaneous and induced abortion 119(65.4%) were spontaneous and 63(34.6%) were induced abortion. 28(14.4%) of incomplete spontaneous abortion occurs between age of 25-years.one of the most common complication in this study was sepsis 19(10.4%). This study revealed that the main reason for induced abortion was due to rape and economic problem which holds 28(15.4%) and 14(7.7%) respectively Occupation and marital status are strongly associated with types of abortion with p-value of P<0.001. Discussion The study is comparable with previous studies done in Gambella hospital showed that patients with induced abortion were younger, single and had a secondary education. Conclusion and recommendation: The study concludes that majority of abortion were spontaneous abortion which almost hold all septic abortion and majority of induced abortion were teenage, single students and most of them presented after 2 nd trimester of pregnancy which increases the complication of abortion. Thus, health education on dangers of induced abortion, spontaneous abortion and utilization of contraceptive methods services to all women are highly recommende