Patients' attitudes and experiences related to receiving contraception during abortion care

High risk for additional unintended pregnancies among abortion patients makes the abortion care setting an ideal one for facilitating access to contraception. This study documents attitudes of abortion patients about contraceptive services during their receipt of abortion services and identifies patient characteristics associated with desire for contraception and interest in using a long-acting reversible contraceptive method (LARC).

Structured surveys were administered to 542 patients at five US abortion-providing facilities between March and June of 2010. Supplementary information was collected from 161 women who had had abortions in the past 5 years through an online survey.

Among abortion patients, two thirds reported wanting to leave their appointments with a contraceptive method and 69% felt that the abortion setting was an appropriate one for receiving contraceptive information. Having Medicaid and having ever used oral contraceptives were predictive of wanting to leave with a method. Women having a second or higher-order abortion were over twice as likely as women having a first abortion to indicate interest in LARC, while black women were half as likely as white women to indicate this interest.

Many women are interested in learning about and obtaining contraceptive methods, including LARC, in the abortion care setting.