The characteristics of women presenting for abortion and complications of illegal abortions at the University Teaching Hospital, Lusaka, Zambia: an explorative study.

This paper describes the findings of a prospective study of women presenting with a request for termination of pregnancy with the diagnosis of abortion complications at the University Teaching Hospital in Lusaka, Zambia. The study identifies some socio-economic characteristics of these women, comparing those obtaining legal abortions with those obtaining illegal abortions. Women utilizing the legal abortion facilities tend to be older (20-29 years), married or single, multiparous, educated to secondary level or above, and received the termination under the medical indication of ¿risk of injury to physical or mental health of the pregnant woman¿. On the other hand, women who resorted to illegal abortion tended to be young (15-19 years), unmarried, nulliparous, and schoolgirls who indicated their reason for termination as ¿being a student¿. The majority of women had never used contraceptives and 5.5% of the women who had requested a legal termination had an unwanted pregnancy resulting from discontinuation of use of a contraceptive. About 11% of the illegal abortion seekers had had at least 1 illegal abortion previously. The majority of women in both groups had had a termination within the gestational age range of 8-12 weeks. Traditional health providers and/or traditional methods were the major source and method of illegal abortions. The paper makes recommendations for service deliverers, researchers, and policy-makers in Zambia to improve the present situation.