Development of Reproductive Health ofWomen in Czech Republic in 1993 - 1997III. Induced Abortion

Czech version

Authors: Z. Štembera; P. Velebil
Authors‘ workplace: Ústav pro péči o matku a dítě, Praha-Podolí, ředitel ing. Vladimír Wollmuth
Published in: Ceska Gynekol 2000; (4): 243-249
Category:

Overview

Objective:
To analyze the effect of changes in system of health and social care on reproductivehealth of women. In particular to analyze the changes in frequency of induced abortions asa basis for evaluation of changes in contraceptive use.Design: Retrospective comparative epidemiological study.Setting: Institute for the Care of Mother and Child, Praha 4 - Podolí.Methods: The database of the Czech Office of Health Statistics and Information was used. Besidescomparison of absolute numbers of induced abortions we used international criteria „Abortionrate” and „Abortion ratio”. These parameters were compared with maternal age, marital status,level of education, and number of children.Results: Since the legislature on induced abortions came into effect till 1991 the annual variationsof the number of induced abortions in the Czech Republic were inverse to changes in number ofbirths due to current fertility. However, since then the number of abortions has been decreasingwhile the number of births was also decreasing. Using the abortion ratio as a measure, we wereable to observe the decrease from 34.3 to 29.1 % during 1993 - 1997, however the later value is stillhigher than in developed world. According to the selected social-demographic parameters ofwomen we have seen the highest decrease of absolute number of abortions among married wo-men, women with two children, and women with secondary education. According to the numberof abortions per 1000 women of reproductive age there has also been decrease among marriedwomen, however also among women 15 - 19 year and among women with university education.The smallest decrease of abortion rate has been observed among single women.Conclusions: In this part of the study we analyzed the decrease of induced abortions during 1993 -1997 related to four selected social-demographic characteristics of women of reproductive age.Our results will be used for further analyses of relationship of contraception and induced aborti-ons during the specified period. Such analysis is a subject of separate study.

Key words:
epidemiology, induced abortion, social-demographic characteristics, abortion rate,

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